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• Reputation: 2398 Q&A: 49 0 8 1422 164 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 1 Mahtli69

  0 0 I've got a couple of WA GET plans for my kids. It used to be a great deal, but now it's not. The idea is that it appreciates at the same rate as school tuition of the most expensive Washington school (typically UW). If UW tuition goes up 30%, then the value of your GET plan goes up 30%. If you have enough money in there for one year of tuition in 2011, then you still will have enough for one year in 2025, or whenever your kid goes to school. It was also nice in that it was completely flexible for in-state, out-of-state, or vocational tuition, and could also be used for books, room-and-board, etc. But, there's a catch. Thanks to massive state spending cuts, UW tuition has been going up at astronomical rates each year --- 20%, 30%, etc. Since there's no possible way for an investment fund to guarantee that rate of return (especially in this economy), the cost of paying into the plan is now much higher than what you can pull out.  One GET unit (100 units is equivalent to a year's tuition) is now worth $102, but it costs you $163. This is a whopping 60% markup! Just a couple of years ago, this was more like a 10% markup, and you'd more-or-less recover that in a year or so, and you could count on a 7-8% per year average annual return thereafter. Now, it's more like 10 years before you recover the initial mark-up, which renders the entire plan useless. It's our fine state's passive-aggressive way of killing the program without actually killing the program. So, now I'm shopping around for a different plan ... I realize that I didn't really answer your question, other than squashing the idea of starting a GET plan. I'm curious to hear other answers. Mahtli69 answered in Personal Finance 6 months ago | Report 1 comment by infernactual… 0 0 Actually, that's very helpful. I'd come to the conclusion that the GET plan now sucked, so that helps confirm that. I ended up doing going with the Michigan plan managed by TIAA-CREF. It's a very flexible plan that has performed very well and adjusts investment strategy automatically based on age of child. The min/max contributions are great and the plan can be used in any state and even rolled over to another state should WA get its act together. infernactual commented 6 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 1 Q&A: 0 0 0 1 0 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Moderator cbt is a moderator on Questionland Seattle Follow Following 0 cbt

  0 0 529 Plans appear more complicated than they really are. First of all they are set up by states, so pretty much every state has one or more plans. WA has one, called GET and it's pretty lame. The general rules with 529 Plans are that you can live in any state, get a plan from any other state and then use the proceeds for a school in any third state. Some plans require you be a resident, but most don't. The key thing with choosing a plan is making sure it managed by a reputable firm with a good investment track record and that the investment strategy is adapted to fit the age of the child as she/he nears college age (i.e. reducing risk over time). I ended up choosing Michigan's plan because it has an excellent track record over 1/3/5 years. Is managed by TIAA-CREF, has a very low fee structure (less than most), is easily transferable to other plans/states if desired (haven't tried that yet), and provides flexible/small minimum contributions which can be easily set up on a monthly basis if desired. cbt answered in Personal Finance 6 months ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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