More Parents Are Becoming 529 Dropouts:
"When Michael Singer of Coral Springs, Fla., started saving for his children's college education about six years ago, he relied mainly on a 529 savings plan sponsored by the state of New Mexico. Then the 49-year-old high-school teacher lost about half of his 529 savings because of an Oppenheimer bond fund that had bet heavily on mortgage-backed securities. Mr. Singer decided not to make the big contribution he had planned to his 529 this year, and he is now saving for college on his own, mostly by investing in municipal-bond funds and individual bonds."
With all the articles that have been written about the stock market decline, the vast majority of them were focused on 401K and IRA plans. This is the first one I've seen that even mention 529's. Pity the poor middle class couple who have seen their house, 401K and 529 plans take a dive in recent years. Actually there are probably quite a few generous grand parents that are in the same boat.
Which brings me to my most favorite under reported Elephant In The Room story, the College Tuition Bubble. For close to forty years our elected officials in Washington DC have felt it their duty to Socially Re-Engineer our society into a Utopia where everyone owns a house, has a college education, and works at a job that doesn't require dirty hands. In other words, a society molded in their own elite image. They are trying to deal with the fallout of the Housing Bubble, quite badly I might add, and don't have a clue about the tuition loan problem that is making Debt Slaves out of a generation after generation of young people.
House debtors have learned the hard way that they've been deceived by the promise of the great American Dream of home ownership. Now recent graduates are learning that they have also been deceived by another American Dream, a College Education. They've indebted themselves for many years to come, only to find that all their hard earned degree will buy them is a job as a night manager at McDonalds. A job where ironically they get their hands quite dirty.
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