Virginia 529 program guide

Montana - Montana offers the Achieve Montana Plan. Ohio - Ohio offers the CollegeAdvantage Plan. Pennsylvania - Pennsylvania offers the PA Plan. Utah - Utah offers the my Plan. Virginia - Virginia offers the Invest Plan. Washington - Washington offers the DreamAhead Plan. Wisconsin - Wisconsin offers the Edvest Plan. Wyoming - Wyoming is the only state that doesn't offer a plan to save for college.

Other Options. Get Out Of Debt. How To Start. Extra Income. Build Wealth. Credit Tools. Extra Income. Build Wealth. Credit Tools. If you live in Virginia, these might be good options for you to save for college. Virginia Plan Tax Information.

Virginia College Savings Plan Options. Virginia Able Plan Options. Average Cost Of College In Virginia When saving for college in Virginia, it's important to take into consideration the cost of attendance in the state. There are colleges and universities in the State of Virginia. Explore the data here.

Virginia Plan Tax Information Tax savings is one of the big benefits of using a plan to save for college. Here are the special tax benefits and considerations for using a plan in Virginia.

Rollovers Rollovers into the state plan are allowed but not eligible for the tax deduction. Outbound rollovers are subject to recapture of prior Virginia tax deductions. Qualified Distributions Qualified distributions from a Virginia and non-Virginia plan are tax-free. K Education Virginia does conform with Federal law in regards to using a plan for K tuition.

Student Loans Virginia does conform with Federal law for using a plan for student loans. Non-Qualified Distributions Taxes, Penalties, Recapture A non-qualified withdrawal from a Virginia is subject to Virginia taxes on the full amount to recapture prior year tax deductions.

Virginia College Savings Plan Options Virginia has several plan options - one consumer plan and one plan that is sold by financial advisors we're big advocates of doing-it-yourself, you don't need to pay a financial advisor for this. Fees: There is a program management fee of 0. Who Should Use It: We recommend that Virginia residents use the Virginia Invest plan due to the tax benefits, low fees, and plan investment options.

We recommend that out-of-state residents utilize other plans. When junior is in middle school, i am planning to roll over money from VA invest account to buy VA prepaid. At that time, we will have a higher probability of knowing about his school choice in a broader sense at least instate or out of state. PD, I suppose a hybrid approach is an option. I should say most of my planning is focused on teaching my kids that an in state option is likely the best value.

But I wanted to leave open the option of out of state. In the case you mention, as long as the value is still good, this could be a way to save some money.

What am I missing? Lee, Thanks for reading and using my article as a guide. We always like to see changes because usually they are meant to make the plan better. My last update was a few months ago. Your comment tells me I need to go back over this again to make sure it is fully up to date.

Lee, I looked over the available documents and confirmed the information above is accurate. So you would only have exposure to it if you invested in one of the age-based portfolio and it would only be about 3. Better yet, Vanguard is the best source. Let me know if you have any other questions about this program. Happy to help in this comments section for free!

I can only help with navigating this stuff and give generalized opinions. Our oldest will be entering college in August We are looking at which VA colleges public and private to apply to and I I have a question.

For example purposes, I am not factoring in scholarships or financial aid. I need to update this post with withdrawal rules. Perhaps another reader may want to chime in. Good luck -RBD. Hello, RBD. I am torn between the different VA plans and your post is most certainly helpful and informative. Question for you: have your VA inVest been negatively impacted by the recent Brexit debacle?

My oldest child is 13 years old and I regret not opening one sooner! Joanne, Thanks for your kind words. I was happy to write on this subject as I have three kids and already did the research. The investment choices are of course market driven.

Be it Brexit, terrorist attacks, housing crises, or Oprah recommending stocks. Despite all the news, Brexit was a very short term move in stocks. What happens today means nothing with a long term view. My oldest is only four. One day of Brexit news is nothing compared to 14 more years of the stock market. The investment choices available are fairly diverse, and include fixed income bonds. So most parents can find investments that fit their risk tolerance, and the age-based portfolios are a popular way to do that.

Thank you for this article. We have a one year old daughter and are trying to decide what the best choice is. I feel totally out if my element looking at the different options. One thing I am struggling with is that since graduating from Virginia Tech seven years ago tuition has just about doubled!

Any thoughts on the recent jump in tuition rates and if prepaid would be wise if limiting to Virginia schools was not a concern? Hi Rebekah It is overwhelming! It may work for others. The next batch is the private colleges. The price of one year is outrageous for some private colleges.

Perhaps college costs could be lowered with virtual classes in the future. Think Oculus Rift for the classroom. I expect we should see this in the coming years. But the quality of that kind of education may not be for everyone. Technology may be the solution to rising costs. A friend of mine made a documentary on the subject of student loans and increasing costs. Check out his website. It will hopefully be available to stream and on some public and cable channels soon.

Hi RBD! Just wanted to say that I referred to this blog post several times when I was making my investment decision a few months ago and it was seriously helpful!

Glad you found this web site helpful. Kids are 4, 3, and 1 now. It was good to hear the fees were lowered. But low fees is always good! I completely agree about the horrible user interface for managing the accounts. I have some InVest accounts that are already invested in age-based funds, and I want to change them to index funds.

Do you happen to know how I can do that from their website?? You can transfer between funds online. Perhaps I should create a tutorial on it! You do it from the menu when logged into your account. Go to Manage My Accounts. Finally from here, you can follow the prompts to make the transfer. But jeez, so complicated! Also be sure to hit next and save to get a confirmation.

If I recall correctly it takes a few days to actually see the transfer. Good luck! We used the hybrid approach for both kids, purchased one year of prepaid for each kid and opened a College America plan through an employer for each kid as well. Our son is a sophomore now at a VA school and has used both years of prepaid for tuition we easily transferred daughters prepaid to him and his for room and board.

Our daughter will definitely not be attending a VA school because she wants to play ice hockey in college, something we could not have predicted when we originally started saving for college. We are going to rollover the College America plan to VA Invest due to the higher cost funds in the College America plan and the fact that our financial adviser will not return our calls with questions. Thanks for the great article, it is really helpful!

Thanks for sharing you experience. This article is mostly from the perspective of an early stage family. Interesting to hear your daughter will be out of state to play a sport. Definitely not predictable.

Glad to hear you could transfer it easily to you son. I also think a hybrid approach is a good idea, but through having other non-VA ways to pay for school. Like regular savings and cash flow from a job. Hi RBD, Wow, just wow. Can I add other funds to make a mix?

Thanks, PD. What is normal and easy on every other investment site is a little different on VA I just went in to look how I opened additional holdings and had some trouble! Seems this may have changed. It steps you through the process. I think you can transfer to a new fund there. Otherwise, I believe you may need to initiate another account from the far left tab. However, you might call to confirm that. That is more for adding a new child but maybe a new fund too since each new fund is considered an account.

I added three funds when my daughter was born. Thank you so much! Hope this finds you well!!! People complain about the website, customer service and difficulty with withdrawing funds. Are you worried about any of it and why? So late in the game what would you do — some conservative fund in VA, age-based VA, Vanguard , regular index fund, something else? Most of our money is in low-cost Vanguard index funds through the VA We also get the state tax deduction. But once you log in, the website is terrible.

I had a chance to speak to some reps from VA and they wholeheartedly agreed. Way back when, they decided to design and build a custom site in house and it was clearly a mistake.

Age-based funds will do this for you. Hello and thank for writing this blog. I am a bit concerned about the customer service. Have you calculated how much the deduction will really save you?

As I mention in the article, the savings is 5. VA is still one of the better plans out there considering the investment options, plus the in state tax savings. Recently moved to VA and opened an Invest plan for my little guy and have similar concerns about the website.

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