How Safe Is Your College Savings Account?

Guaranteed Help from the government?

Unfortunately, we can't all work for the government for our entire lives.

Maybe if the govt had service contracts for recent college grads and others where they work for 5 years, gaining some level of pension and then move on to entreprenuership or private employment...

Everyone cannot work for the government for 20,30,40 years with guaranteed pensions...because we do not have the tax base to support this. we have too many seniors and up and coming seniors and not enough younger workers to pay our way in retirement...

The good old days that were passed during FDR worked much like a bell curve...yet law of diminishing returns has hit and although the safety net has worked for many...we cannot sustain the level of retirement hopes and dreams to retire and live it up, and get cream of the crop healthcare for free with medicare...does not add up...

For those of us who missed the free meal ticket that the government offers, we need to get back to the drawing board and work, hard for a living...and save at least 1/3 of what we make.

Alabama Pact

The alabama pact program markets itself THRU state officials

with official state seals and endorsements from senators

and the treasurer.

I started a contract 3 years ago and terminated it about 1 month

ago. It seems to me, we have unethical marketing gimmicks

cooked up by banksters, who pay politicians ( acting as salesmen ) to lure us into this.

So in my opinion all these 401k's, 529 plans are BS

because the only thing these people really are interested in is getting fees and screwing you. They know that when the majority of people need the money they will pass the problem to someone else and let them take the heat.

Besides they can always blame "the market" which is

a code word for crooked bankers and insiders who control them.

Our 529

We put money in our states 529 in their "consevative age based" option. Needless to say we are in the hole with tuition due next month. Had I known this would happen, I would have pi__ed the money away rather than have the financial wh__es loose it for me.

How Safe Is Your College Savings Account?

Uncertainty is the problem where saving for college and saving for retirement are concerned. In a flash, hopes and dreams can go up in smoke--earmarked savings suddenly reduced by the uncertainty of the market.

Can there be a genuine argument against that for most people the only safeguard is the government? Republicans rail against "nanny" government, but for, again, MOST people government is their safeguard.

When I left the Air Force in 1957, there would have been no real possibility of a college education for me without the very low-cost NDEA government loan program then in place AND, for two years, free college tuition for those who qualified in New York State. I qualified not by grades but, on probation, by military service for four years.

When I made the decision to retire very early from college teaching in 1989 because of my wife's health problems, I did so following a one-third erosion of my TIAA-CREF retirement account due to the market collapse of 1987. Had it not been for Social Security, my wife and I would not have enjoyed ten more good years together before her passing, followed by two very difficult years preceding that passing.

In a perfect world, savings for college would be as we intend them to be, principal plus wonderful accrued interest, and savings for retirement would be likewise. That is not how systems really operate, though, and government is the only safeguard between you, me and disaster.

How safe IS your college savings account? Not as safe as

guaranteed help from the varied levels of government. And how safe is your 401K? Not as safe as Social Security.

The next time you hear Republicans say "individual responsibility," speak out. For heaven's sake, speak out!