In the Market for a 529 College Savings Plan? Shop Around
There was big growth in account balances during the pandemic, but some states are offering promotions to attract even more savers.
Credit.Till Lauer
May 21, 2021, 10:57 a.m. ET
Special college saving programs known as 529 plans have been around for more than two decades, and have become cheaper and more flexible over the years. But families should still do some comparison shopping before choosing a plan, advisers say.
“It’s still the best option to save substantial amounts of money,” said Scott Beaudin, principal of Pathway Financial Advisors in South Burlington, Vt.
May 13, 2021, 3:00 p.m. ET
Credit.Chris Gash
By Stephen Adair and Colena Sesanker
Dr. Adair is a sociology professor at Central Connecticut State University. Dr. Sesanker teaches philosophy at Gateway Community College in New Haven, Conn.
The last 40 years have seen an ever-widening income gap between those with college degrees and those without. Over that interval, incomes have soared for those with advanced degrees and declined for those with high-school diplomas or less. As a result, the route to economic security for young people depends increasingly on access to higher education. Yet it keeps getting more expensive.
Since the Great Recession, the public portion of the operating costs for state universities and colleges in Connecticut, where we teach, has declined 20 percent; since the 1980s, it has declined by nearly half. In the 1960s, tuition for a Connecticut state university was $100 a year, which could be earned by working fewer than 100 hours at minimum wage. Today, a
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No Parties. No Sports. How Oberlin College Is Surviving the Pandemic.
Colleges across the country are figuring out how Covid has changed the college experience, while parents are struggling to understand why schools haven’t changed their price tag.
Thursday, February 18th, 2021
kara swisher
Hi, I’m Kara Swisher, and you’re listening to “Sway.” Last fall, my eldest son, Louie, started college at N.Y.U. during the pandemic. As a parent, I had a ton of questions, like how schools were making safety decisions, of course. But also, how would they justify their high price tags for what was essentially Zoom classes? Those are the questions that Carmen Twillie Ambar has been grappling with for the past year. She’s the president of Oberlin College, a small liberal arts school in Ohio, well known for its music conservatory and for its progressive student body.