State Treasurer Roby Smith says there’s been a change in the state’s education savings plan. Smith says the I-Save 529 plan age-based savings tracks have been replaced with a new enrollment-based portfolio.
“They can pick an enrollment date and say, well, this is only gonna be for graduate school, or my child might start early. And so they can invest and give them more options of when they need the money,” he says. Smith says you can still decide your best option for investing with the enrollment portfolios. “So they can go the aggressive approach or the more moderate approach. So they can use that for their timeline if they’d like, but they also have individuals, so there’s 14 individual portfolios they can choose based on the overall stock market or more bonds,” Smith says.
Smith says the key is to start an account and contribute to it regularly. “Whatever you can afford and just put in there and then that will grow and have it ready for your child whenever that might be, age 18 or age 22 if they’re going to graduate school,” he says.
The plan used to be centered on saving for college, but Smith says you can save for any type of education. “It can be used K through 12, it can be for apprenticeship training, apprenticeship training. trade or vocational schools. It can pay off student loans. It can be for graduate school, community college, regular college, you name it. As long as it’s going for education, you can use the money for them,” Smith says.
He says it’s easy to open an education savings account. “It takes about ten minutes and it takes $25. It’s not a cost to open it up, that’s just your initial investment. into the program. And so you can go to the website, Isave529.com. Isave529.com,” Smith says. Smith says the growth of the account is the long term benefit, and you can save short term by writing off donations on your Iowa tax form. You can write off up to 61-hundred dollars for each person that contributes to the account.