Post-Secondary Education

[Guest Donell]

I have a participant that is requesting distribution on an invoice from "National Personal Training Institute". Is this institute considered post-secondary education. Their website only issues a Certificate of Completion after a 500 hour course.

[masteff]

This older thread: http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=28856 matches what I was taught to use: does the school or trade program qualify for financial aid programs from the Dept of Ed?

But that's not to say an alternative standard might not be acceptible.

[Belgarath]

I don't think there's any iron-clad answer to this. The regulations (1.401(k)-1(d)(3)) don't define what "qualifies" as "post-secondary education."

While I'd recommend checking with your TPA and of course checking the terms of your plan, your plan probably doesn't define the term either. I think I'd tend toward being pretty liberal on this - I don't think your responsibility extends to investigating the accreditation or non-accreditation of the "educational" institution. I'll be interested to see what others think.

[BG5150]

In the ERISA Outline Book (on-line version), there is a side note in the Hardship Withdrawal Section that says:

There is no definition in the regulations of "post-secondary" education. In the absence of guidance, it should be reasonable to interpret this term to mean that a high school degree (or its equivalent) is required for such education.