Worried about the high cost of college for your children? This concern is certainly legitimate. On average, the cost of a college education rises by twice the rate of inflation. However, the fear of a cost increase can be mitigated if parents and students are aware of the tools available to help them cover the expense.
The 529 prepaid tuition and savings plans are among the weapons parents and students can use to cover the cost of college tuition. The 529 plans, also known as “qualified tuition plans” are designed to encourage families to save for higher education. They provide incentives to save, and also allow for additional financial and tax benefits that can make the process easier for families who plan ahead. All 50 states sponsor at least one type of 529 plan, so there are options available for any citizen in any state.
Note that there is a difference between the 529 prepaid tuition plans and the 529 college savings plans. The 529 prepaid tuition plans allow parents and students to purchase credits for tuition at a chosen university and sometimes even room and board. The price of tuition, room and board is held fixed, with no inflationary changes for the duration of the investment (in other words, the cost of tuition doesn’t change for you like it does for everyone else). Most of the plans are sponsored by the state government and also have some kind of residency requirement. In exchange for meeting these requirements, the state government will provide a guarantee for the investment made in the 529 plan.
The 529 savings plans are similar to the prepaid tuition plans, with some mild variations. The plans allow an individual (usually the parent) to set up a plan for another individual (the student) with the goal of paying for the student’s educational expenses. The plans also allow plenty of flexibility in choosing the beneficiary, and you can even choose yourself as the beneficiary. The funds are not guaranteed by the state or federal government and you are given an array of investment options for the funds you’ve deposited into your account. In other words, the government lets you have more freedom of choice, but they take less responsibility in the event that your choice is incorrect.
The tax advantages of 529 plans are quite strong. While rules can vary by state, you are not typically required to pay state and federal taxes on earnings from either type of 529 plan. The only requirement is that any withdrawals from the plan are being used to pay qualified college expenses. Withdrawing the funds to pay for items not related to the cost of college attendance will lead to a 10% penalty in addition to any applicable federal and state income taxes.
My thoughts on the issue? Prepaid tuition plans are the safest bet, as long as you are sure that you don’t want to leave the state to attend college. While you are allowed out of the deal in most cases, there is a penalty for doing so. The 529 Savings plans are better for those who want to have a bit more flexibility in attendance options, as well as the chance to possibly outrun the cost of college tuition.
One other important thing to remember is that investing in your child also includes things like paying for tutors and after school programs, thus making your child academically competitive. Getting your child ready for college in the 9th and 10th grades is far more effective than waiting for the 11th and 12th grades. All of these investments can give you a very nice return when you consider the fact that many top universities are offering free tuition to low-income students who make good grades. You don’t have to use traditional thinking when it comes to paying for your child to go to college. I encourage you to think outside the box.
Whatever choice you make, money should not be the hurdle that keeps you or your child from higher education. Also, EVERY child is college material, no matter what the guidance counselor has said.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University. He is also the author of “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about College”, and “Financial Lovemaking 101: Merging Assets with Your Partner in Ways that Feel Good”. He is also the founder of YourBlackWorld.com, one of the top black news and commentary sites in America. For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.net.
16 comments:
I got nothing but respect and veneration for you Dr. Watkins, but I say "tell him what you need him to do," and then based on that, decide if you want to "vote for Barack Obama."
Well, Elrancho78, the alternative to John McCain is Barack Obama who plans to:
1. Escalate the already murderous and tyrannical genocide going on in Afghanistan.
2. Provide unconditional support for Israel's ungodly occupation of Palestine land.
3. If necessary (which means if possible) ignite a nuclear war with Pakistan.
4. End Affirmative action based on race, which means that Blacks are back to the bottom of the totem pole of consideration.
5. Prolong Bushe's deadly and inhumane Latin American policies that make life a hell-hole for our Brown brothers and sisters.
6. Establish a Military presence in Africa (Africom) that militarizes, corrupts and embezzles African Oil (sound familiar to Iraq and Afghan)... And much much more.
P.S: If you need any links for the references stated above, contact me and I'll gladly provide them.
Even if all those accusations on your list were accurate and true (and not wildly exagerated) I'd still prefer Obama to McCain any day. I'd be interested to know what you think of McCain's 'bomb, bomb, bomb' approach to Iran, and his willingness to keep troops in Iraq for a 100 years.
Even though Dr Boyce has voiced strong reservations about Obama's campaign, your very anti-Obama stance makes you sound more like a republican plant or Fox News employee trying to infiltrate Boyce's blog, than anything else. No offense if I'm wrong about that!
Whether you know it or not, "El," I am a Staff Writer here at YourBlackWorld.com. Dr. Boyce knew about my Anti-Orwellian...oops... I meant Anti-Obama stances before he extended an offer to me. I don't perceive my actions as infiltrating, rather enlightening a people who are, in Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright's words, "Stuck on Stupid." I am a leftist-progressive by affiliation, and if you classify any criticisms of Obama as Republican-planting, Black folks would suffer immeasurably during an Obama Presidency. He is not infallible!!! By the way, Obama's implicit suggestions about Bombing Pakistan and intensifying the War in Afghanistan are not as far-fetched from "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb" as you might think. Here are a couple of my highlights here at YBW:
http://yourblackwriters.blogspot.com/2008/07/your-black-politics-barack-obamas.html
http://yourblackpolitics.blogspot.com/2008/08/your-black-world-barack-obama-and-dark.html
http://yourblackpolitics.blogspot.com/2008/08/your-black-world-will-joe-biden-be.html
Okay t o - I take it back and will read up. If you're right what hope do any of us have?
That's why I suggest we lay out our agenda in fine print now. In the words of the Great Frederick Douglass, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Now that it seems as though he will win by a landslide (if he doesn't blow it in a major fashion) we should be more than comfortable and confident in tabling our wants and desires (And our demands should not be narrowed or limited to our personal-benefit; they should extend to our comrades worldwide). Nobody deserves a free pass. Not even a history-making Black candidate.
how is a vote for obama, in spite of his consummate imperial and asocial policies, any different than a vote of confidence for clarence thomas, condi rice, or ward connelly? harrumph. we could simply exert political pressure on any president, and i happen to know for damn sure that mckinney/clemente's policies would be more congruent with class struggles, corporate accountability -- including taxing outsourcing of jobs, prosecution of war crimes, and real-world diplomacy, just to start with. so what if it fails in the elcetion. the focus of the movement should be to build a critical mass of interests, and needs.
i am very disappointed in obama's willingness to do anything/say anything, to get elected, including his rebuff of clinton, and her supporters, as vp, which was shrewdly picked up on by team mccain, and their choice, and quite possibly well-enough to satisfy the country's relish for change at this time. to borrow the phrase found in another's blog: i refuse to be a "good german."
right on to. let's be vigilant, critical and, above all, also work toward building coalitions that affect change and addressing the issues that most people care about.
on every issue of substance the message is sent that asking for government to reflect people is unrealistic. to whom? our tepid politicians, the intestinal equal of athletes, afraid to jeopardize their corporate gift bags. you don't get the justice you don't ask for. you can find me at:
www.myspace.com/28241436
It amazes me that of all the elections that have taken place in this country, everyone want's Obama to be held accountable. When do you hold the other candidates to the same standard. Give me a break, I am so sick and tired of hearing how ignorant folk are for supporting Obama, we have done our research and our final decision is that this is our candidate of choice.
This is for t o. I went to the first link and was not at all impressed with the critique / analysis of Obama's responses. I probably have a far higher opinion of him than you and certainly don't demand as much as you do.
As I grow older, the more I realize that we never get the perfect lover, a perfect life, a perfect President... It's always preferable to aim high but sometimes you have to go for the best solution available. I honestly believe he's the best candidate for President in my life time but I also understand that in order to win he has to be a shrewd and disciplined politician. He wouldn't stand a chance in Hell of being elected if he gave the responses you seem to demand. So you must ask yourself; would you rather him live up to your ideals and forever be standing on the sidelines shouting for something we'll never get? Would that achieve more? Would that mean more equality and opportunity? By all means criticize him and hold him accountable but please don't undermine him. Sometimes in life you have to be pragmatic and take the best option available (surely you can’t think McCain would be a better President?!) and if Obama does win, I believe he'll prove himself beyond our expectations. If he doesn't, I can only foresee castastrophe for America.
anonymous, i don't believe that this is the very first election that you've paid attention to and therefore need to be reminded that in each and every election politicians have been hyper-examined, or vetted, as they like to say. obama's not the first, and it's not because he needs to be twice as good as the "white" brotha.
that obama represents "the end of black politics" is no overstatement. as a digestible representation of blackness, his politics fall way short of what black people -- and frankly the poorer blacks that need his leadership on critical needs the most -- would find acceptable if he were not black.
without question, his politics represent a "white" lineage more than a "black" lineage, and mere tokenism at this time is no more substantive than a compassionate-conservative bush, or a democrat in the white house, let alone the very first black president: clinton. if he can do no better than oversee military aggression -- costing lives and money that the country doesn't have -- the disintegration of liberties and the social contract, plead ignorance to credit expansion paid for by endless consumption and indebtedness that cannibalizes building wealth, deregulation of major industries and government oversight -- my god, i could go on all night, then "thanks, but no thanks."
so, he pulls us forces out of iraq, even though dems in the senate supported it; let obama tell it the forces stand by to go into iran or afghanistan, perhaps russia. i thought a black man's cool would head off the corporate interests to police the world with a greater understanding of diplomacy. i thought this attitude characterized obama's objection to war in the first place. perhaps we need to better understand why he objected.
elrancho, black people and the nation, perhaps the world, would have an entirely different standard of civil rights if skittishness ruled our lives. we could have stopped just so, with the end of slavery. but we rightly extended justice to include jim crow, equity under the law, political representation, policies that affect affirmative action. we've bulldozed the political discourse in our favor, even though it appears like a long time in coming.
i don't know about you, but i avoided getting trapped with just anybody a long time ago, and i owe it to perspective. i would recommend the same to anybody: spouse, job or fair and equal treatment in any society. i hesitate to fall back on polemics, but if we let ourselves get lazy with our welfare then we will live with regrets and an all-consuming bad conscience
once again, if any president will do, why the hype. no such hype accompanies any of the black conservatives, but it's okay now. why?
If I thought 'any president will do' I would accept the notion of McCain with laziness and apathy. I support Obama, not because of any 'hype' but because I believe he is capable of demonstrating good judgement and can perhaps lead America towards becoming a better country. If he wins, I think it will also be very liberating to know that at last, there are enough people out there who can think for themselves and see through all the lies and manipulation of a racist, fear-mongering media. I think that's an important milestone.
if you re-read the above-mentioned and apparent failures in judgment already -- a telltale sign that far from being perfect, he gives evidence of poor judgment, then why? what milestone? i don't mean why-rhetorically. please tell us, a part from his being black, why; since i presume you don't support all black figureheads.
that is, if you consider that right-leaning blacks, above-mentioned also, are wholly embraced by the right, and its leadership, already for being "good blacks," "the right blacks," which you could argue has furthered feel-good and self-satisfied racial harmony on the proviso that blacks tow the line, and say-all-the-right-things, then why? milestone or wait-a-minute?
as mayors of money centers, reps of both majority black and white districts, front and center of popular tv shows and major sports, you really believe that once we literally and figuratively take over the titantic -- and probably, i think we will be saying in hindsight, much of the onus/legacy of our times, albeit stripped of the fierce language that is equal to the times -- that things will be better, if notionally only for us (symbolically)? how is that better? pretty much makes us no better than “white people” who eternally have been riding along with white privilege. you know the saying: justice, not just-us.
if you believe that he can maintain a centrist, won't-get-in-your-face/tell-you-unpleasant-things, posture that furthers race relations -- independent of all else; unresponsive, so far, to civil liberties, funding the war, escalating animosity elsewhere, turning off white folks, appearing too black, why? he has done no better: playing upon people’s fears – the economy, the war, top-down, but offers nothing to match the rhetoric. big business is angling to use him, like every other gift horse, like a sponge, but you believe he represents independent (same as critical?) thinking. how’s that?
you said it: you're old enough to have learned a few things, but you duck all the ominous signs. i supported the brotha, for all your reasons, but once he began to talk like an apologist; act like an apologist, he became repulsive. (at least clinton waited til he was elected to dash hope.) i will vote mckinney -- proudly and with no second thought -- maybe nader. (if you continue to maintain this devotion to obama at least you should look at either mckinney/nader’s platforms for policies that might make a difference.)
when she loses, i hope that we who she embodies will continue to push for real justice at the feet of our communities, reps and obama or mccain, knowing we won't have an ally in either of them, or anybody that has a stake in the status quo.
Pobaldy; I'm going to let you have the last word (if you want to, in response to this) because it's clear we have very different views on Obama and we’re not going to agree.
I never said he was perfect and I wouldn't expect him to be infallible - I don't know anyone who is? Nor do I see him in the same light as Condi Rice or Colin Powell who I believe have been horribly misguided in their judgement and have only been used as pawns in the republican's game. The milestone I mentioned was more about how the media believe they can control the masses. They certainly try to but I want to see them fail because it's the misinformation and subliminal racism they've peddled for decades that helps to keep white America 'stuck on stupid'. I want the country to prove it can elect a black president in spite of all the one-sided reporting and fear-mongering from the media. To me, that is incredibly important because they certainly possess the most powerful instrument for spreading ignorance and hate, and if they get away with this there is really no hope in ever enlightening those who need to be enlightened.
Lastly, I have no stake in the status quo (I don’t live in America) but I do want to see progress, equality and justice. I know it won't happen all at once so I am prepared to accept one step at a time, and feel that Obama is trying to make a step in the right direction.
I very much doubt that you and I are fighting for different things - we only differ in how we believe they can be achieved. I hope you will see real results from your approach to life and politics and don't end up wasting your obvious talents marooned in an ivory tower. Peace!
media IS big corporate america/conglomerates, and i honestly feel that we are buying into a spiel that is, it follows, hollow -- no different than all those black conservatives miscast as reform.
the media IS nightly news of scurrilous blacks and also freakish entertainers. the republican game IS (not all) the business-as-usual game, and the script from democrat leaders, might take the arch of a love story, but it too IS (not all) the business-as-usual game.
as long as obama panders to the very subliminal racism that his black supporters, and many of his wistful white supporters, among others, ache to transcend we are being played. he will inherit the same risks as president as candidate. if the real king of pop, but not at all unlike him, clinton, could face impeachment for a personal affair, at the same time he sated conservatives and caved-in on almost every important progressive position, it does not strike me that obama will ever get a free pass.
we have sold millions of hip hop records, tickets and the country, for a short period, on affirmative action (meaning overriding white people); so it is foregone conclusion that he can get elected. the question is: on the basis of what?
the subtleties of the black experience that he articulated at the 2004 convention, his race speech, and implied by his opposition to the war have been muted in order to represent a relative bi-polarity, that he also felt the need to pepper with blame-black speeches that are spared just about everyone else, including conservatives, except one bad one: bush.
i'm certain that we both want the same things. i don't expect that it is forthcoming by upholding fisa, throwing-up at the mere accusation that he is muslim, avoiding poverty as clearly as edwards made it his platform, just basic positions that he seemed to support,and that have no racial element.
no matter what, even as moves to the center, the right still accuses him of being far left. he is a democrat, and can't possibly be good enough for them, or else they risk being indistinguishable.
they will distort anything to be represented, and maintain their status and greed. that is their prerogative. but, it is becoming clearer than ever, it is not about race it is about class.
mccain, in his speech last night, says that dems put themselves before country, but it is conservatives that put their own selfish greed before the country that is struggling, in recent memory, let alone the current breaking point.
people, i think, are in favor of government assistance, and bringing truth to power when they are being threatened. the last thing they need to hear is that it is unrealistic to ask for too much.
maybe we just better stick with specific policies, because i won't change your mind, and mckinney won't win. we both seek victories for people.
Wow Dr. Boyce, you got all the white folks mad at you on this one! That's why you're my favorite brother. They can't handle an intelligent and strong black man.
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