With the Qualified Tuition Plan gift and estate rules you can continue to exercise nearly complete control over your account. The account owner can change the designated beneficiary to another qualifying family member at will.

A parent may wish to rollover funds from a Coverdell Education Savings Account to a Qualified Tuition Plan for the student. A Qualified Tuition Plan is considered to be a qualified education expense and doing this would be both tax-free and penalty-free. This would be a way for a parent to maintain better control of the money, and they would no longer be required to distribute or rollover the money before the beneficiary reaches age 30.