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所谓的可能获得的“捐献”其实是那些因为付不出每年的contribution,导致被没收的本金？这条比较危险，还是Self Direct吧。

There are two types of RESP available today:the self-directed RESP and the pooled RESP.

Self-directed RESPs

A self-directed RESP is a trust account set up with a broker or a mutual fund company. The contributor may contribute regular monthly amounts or invest lump-sum amounts, as he or she is able. I prefer the mutual fund RESP, because the amounts contributed are too small to build a sufficiently diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds. When the child is small, the investment horizon is long enough to invest the money in equity. I would place a large amount of the portfolio in foreign equity. The foreign content limits of the RRSP do not apply to the RESP. When the child is closer to university age, the investments need to be adjusted. When the investment horizon is less than five years, most of the portfolio needs to be moved into a lower risk investment, such as a balanced fund. About 18 months before the money is needed, it should be moved into money market. One of the advantages of a self-directed RESP is that you can keep track of your portfolio, as mutual fund values are published daily. Also, if the family faces a time of financial hardship you can stop contributing, without losing growth or capital.

The cost of a Self-directed RESP equals the trustee fee charged and the expense of purchasing and managing the investments. Most mutual fund companies have waived the trustee fees for the RESP. Management fees are published in the prospectus. MERs of the funds I use vary from 0.65% to 2.78%. Keep in mind that the investor receives far more value if the manager invests in global equities than if someone is purchasing T-bills or Canadian bonds. I sell RESPs from a number of mutual fund companies at 0% front-end load.

Pooled RESPs

Pooled plans are also called education trusts, scholarship trusts or groups plans. Most pooled plans work like this. The parent purchases units or partial units in the plan and pays a fixed monthly fee. The education trust invests the money in non-equity investments. The education trust pays trustee fees, depository charges, administration expenses, sales commissions and marketing expenses. The growth of the investments minus the expenses is allocated to the units. Traditionally, if a family dropped out of the plan, the education trust would return the deposits paid, but not the growth. I refer to this drop out as attrition. Attrition is a benefit to the remaining families. When the child reaches age 18 or older and attends a qualifying institution, the education trust pays a fixed number of scholarships, usually three or four.

The size of the scholarship is determined by the following factors:

The return on investment. By law the pooled plans are limited to investing in government bonds, GICs, insured first mortgages and treasury bills.
The administration expenses. It costs money to manage the pool of funds and to market the units. The lower the expenses, the higher the return.
The amount of attrition; the more families drop out the better for the remaining beneficiaries.
Some pooled RESPs are trying to increase the pool by entering into commercial fundraising activities, such as affinity credit cards.
In the past some pooled plans have produced returns of 13% per year. Will the plans be able to repeat this performance? Today's pooled plans face two challenges. Firstly, we may not see the high interest rates we had in the 1980s. Secondly, as the number of eligible institutions is increasing and some pooled plans are making provision for return of growth I expect the return from attrition to be substantially lower. A plan providing for attrition may still produce 10 % return, depending on how many families will drop out. 13% is optimistic. I expect the returns of a pooled plan allowing for the return of growth to produce results similar to that of a self-directed RESP with a mutual fund company containing a bond fund, or combination of income funds.

Pooled plans have a number of limitations.

They are limited to securities that are likely to produce a low return on investment.

For those who receive scholarships attrition benefits may add to the returns to bring them closer to the returns made on a more diversified portfolio, provided a sufficient number of families drop out of the pool. It is difficult to project the anticipated return, since you do not know how much the attrition will be.

The parents' capital is subjected to attrition risk. Parents may lose all or a substantial part of capital if they discontinue contributions to the plan. Advertising may state "the capital is secure and will be returned, if parents withdraw, minus fees". This deduction of fees can create a mean deferred sales charge. I did the math on one plan where forfeiture of fees amounted to a deferred sales charge of 100% in the first year, 77% after 2 years and still 12% after 12 years.

It is almost impossible to calculate the management expense ratio of a pooled RESP. Even if the pooled RESP is organized as a non-profit organization, management fees can exceed the MER of commercial mutual funds that invest in T-bills, mortgages and bonds. The MER of most, but not all, equity funds tends to be higher. It also takes more effort to manage an equity fund than it takes to manage an income fund.

Pooled RESPs are regressive in that the children who receive scholarships benefit from the contributions made by less fortunate families. The two most common reasons for attrition are financial hardship and lack of academic skills. Allocation of funds from less fortunate families to families with more resources is socially undesirable.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net