WA529's Luke Minor

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Okay, everybody, welcome to thepublic affair show of your favorite iHeart radio
station right here in Seattle. Soglad to have back on the phone.
We need to talk to him becauseenrollment is winding down ending soon for the
Washington College Savings Plans on the phonewith me, Executive director of WA five
two nine, Luke Minor Hi,Luke Hi Lee. Thanks for having us

(00:24):
out. Oh. Absolutely. It'ssuch a great opportunity for parents and aunts
and uncles and family members and grandparentsto help get kids to college affordably.
So tell me about the enrollment period. How much time do we have in
this enrollment. So our end ofenrollment for this year for the GET program,
that's the state's prepaid college tuition program, is May thirty first, so

(00:48):
just over a month away. Andit is your opportunity to get started saving
for that special student in your life, whether it's a child or grandchild,
niece or nephew, or even justanother student that's to you in your life
if you want to give them ahead start on their college savings or any
really any education savings beyond high schoolways to fund career readiness training, college

(01:14):
education, those kinds of things.So May thirty first is your opportunity to
get in this year. It's theGET program at this year's price. Okay,
very good. May thirty first forthe GET program. Now I'm talking
to Luke Minor everybody. He's theexecutive director of Washington College Savings Plans,
which GET that we just talked aboutis one of the Dream Ahead College Investment

(01:36):
plan as the other one. Butenrollment is ending in a month and a
little bit more for the GET program. So tell us, did I get
that right? Now? That's absolutelyright? Okay, So in a nutshell,
let's have you give a little bitmore detail about what the Washington College
Savings Plans are. Certainly so youknow, we've talked. You know,

(01:57):
people have already heard the GET program. They are the Dream Ahead program.
It's like, okay, what arethese things and how do they work?
So starting at the highest level,we operate out of the Washington Student Achievement
Council, and that's the state agencythat advocates for higher education for students and
provides a variety of funding opportunities,including state financial aid and what we're here

(02:17):
talking about today at the state's collegesavings programs, and again the overall goal
of these plans is to get familiesahead start when their child is young.
Ideally we're talking grade school or younger. That's the ideal age to start saving.
But we have options for families withstudents of all ages because we know
there's a lot to balance when you'reraising kids and you don't always get to

(02:39):
those things you intend to do,so we try to make a set of
affordable options for families to say forthose future expenses. And that's where Get
and Dream Ahead come into play.They're both plans that have federal tax benefits,
So any earnings you get in afive to nine account GET or Dream
Ahead grow tax free, and theyremain tax free when you use them for

(03:01):
eligible education expenses. And for themost part, those are any expenses associated
with community college for your college,graduate school, but even apprenticeship programs,
technical colleges, a variety of careerreadiness training you can also use these funds
for. So the way it worksis you put money aside. You can

(03:21):
do large amounts all at once,you can do little bits over time or
some combination of that. You encouragefamily members to get involved, so grandparents
and uncles, I think birthdays,holidays, kindergarten graduation things like. So
those are all great opportunities for familymembers to get involved to make the load

(03:42):
lighter. And you know they sayit takes a village during as a child,
right, So get the family involvedin these college savings efforts to get
account a dream Ahead account or anyfive to nine plans, and the goal
is that you've those savings out ofover time and then the time value of
money they earn over time as well, and then you have a nice little
nest egg to support your child's educationor career readiness goals. And the the

(04:08):
goal is for them to finish theirschooling, have their credential, and lighten
any central debt burden they might otherwisetake on, because we all know those
student debt numbers are pretty astronomical thesedays and there's so much conversation around it.
And one of the best strategies isto get ahead of that save when
kids are young, make it aless painful process by just chipping away at

(04:30):
it slowly over time. Yeah,everybody on the phone with me from Washington
College Savings Plans WA five to nineis executive director Luke Minor. You've been
at the job for quite a while, but you've seen a lot of folks
come through a lot of different stories. Can you kind of give me one
end of the spectrum of starting earlywith a kid at an early age and

(04:55):
maybe a little bit older. You'vegot two programs, it looks better for
the other. Yeah, I meanwe have countless and great examples. I've
been with the organization for ten yearsand many of our team members have been
around Matt long or even up totwo decades or more. So we have
a lot of a lot of folkshere who really care about the work we're

(05:16):
doing. We're really passionate. Manyof us walk the walk too. We've
had kids or grandkids in our livesthat we've saved for to prepare for our
education expenses. So talking on theearly end of the spectrum, I have
a three year old and before shewas even born, my wife and I
decided to open a get account,the prepaid tuition plan for our daughter even

(05:40):
before she was born. And that'ssomething that many people don't realize you can
do. You can open it upin your name. When you're child's born,
you transfer it to their name rightnow. So that is an example
of this end of the spectrum thatthere's countless just amazing stories we get from
parents who have sent their kids toschool, and you know where do I

(06:00):
start. One example that's reason thatcomes to mind as a parent who they
sent their daughter to college on theEast Coast on a volleyball scholarship, so
they actually didn't even need the savingsin their get account for her undergraduate education,
but then she wanted to go tograduate school, so they have that
money waiting for them and are ableto use that money for that. So

(06:23):
that's an example of that helps alsoclear up a misconception people often have to
like, well, what if mystudent gets a scholarship, aren't my saving
do they go to waste? Andno, that's never the case. I
mean people usually find other ways touse the funds for further education. You
can transfer it to a family memberand at the end of the day,
it's money that you've saved over timeand it's drown and if you don't use

(06:44):
it for college education, there aretax considerations get to think about. But
most people end up finding that there'sa way for them to use it,
even if it's not how they originallyanticipated using it. Another interesting example is
someone in our office. Her son, near the start of the pandemic,
enrolled in WSU and was set togo there in the fall, and then
we had all the disruption. Kidsweren't able to go to campus. He

(07:08):
really just didn't have the best freshmanyear experience, and so he changed pathways
and ended up going towards an apprenticeshift program. But the good news is
those funds that they saved were stillable to use for those kinds of purposes.
So that's yet another example of thingsdidn't go as you initially planned,
but those are savings that are stillworking for you even if you're going a

(07:31):
different direction. In many cases,and like I said, if the student
ends up completely not being able touse it, there's the ability to transfer
to a brother, a sibling,or a cousin. A parent could transfer
back to themselves and put themselves throughcontinuing education. But for all those stories
where things then go as planned,we also have lots of families where you

(07:53):
know, they say that they couldn'thave done it without those savings efforts they
made. Their kids. Let's say, went to the University of Washington or
WSU, they got their degree,and they graduate with very little debt and
they say, it's the best decisionI ever made because I made that choice
early to reduce that future debt potentialfor my student, and now they're able

(08:13):
to kind of start their career,start their lives on a really solid footing
without that burden, that heavy burdenof college debt that is so great everybody.
Luke Miners on the phone. Heis the executive director of WAR five
to nine. That's Washington College Savingsplans, and they are protected, guaranteed
safe, right because this is aWashington state program, that's right. So

(08:39):
this is a good point in theconversation to kind of break down GET and
dream ahead a little bit. We'vetalked a lot about the benefits of a
college savings plan, but we haven'treally talked about the fact that we have
these two programs that they're similar intheir tax benefits, but they're different in
the way they work. So GETis guaranteed guaranteed education tuition. It's a
Steve's prepaid tuition program, meaning thatif you buy a uar of tuition today,

(09:01):
it's guaranteed to keep pace from whetheryou use it ten years from now,
eighteen years from now, so youget buy it for a newborn,
You've already prepaid that future college expense, and it keeps pace with our most
expensive public university in Washington, whichis the University of Washington. So one
hundred GAT units equal year of uDUB tuition. So if you buy,

(09:22):
say one hundred GAT units, youknow you have a year of tuition covered
at UDUB. And that also meansyou would have a year of tuition or
more covered at WSU, Eastern,Washington University, Western Central, any of
the state universities. Now people oftenwonder, oh, does that mean I
can you know, my student hasto go to Washington College and I'm out

(09:43):
of luck if I go elsewhere.Now that the great thing about GET is
it's portable, but it will alwaysbe valued at DUB tuition rates. So
if you stay in state and goto community college, those hundred units you
buy will go way farther than theywould at DUB. But if you go
to private school or pay out ofstate tuition somewhere, those units may not

(10:03):
go as far. But the goodnews is you know you're at least keeping
pace with Washington tuition at the Universityof Washington and WSU, so really flexible
and how you use it the waywe kind of we guarantee that it will
keep pace at least with our publicstate institutions. Okay, and that's get
Luke Miners on the phone, executivedirector of the Washington College Savings Plans,

(10:28):
one of which is get the othersdream Ahead. Let's talk about dream Ahead.
So dream Ahead is the state's collegesavings program or college investment program.
So it is like get in thetax treatment again, the funds grow tax
free. However, there's not aguarantee like get what. The options that

(10:48):
are available instead are investment based portfoliosbased on either stocks or bonds or a
combination of those things. You cantell us the age of your student and
then you'll be in a portfolio thatautomatically adjusts over time to become less risky
as college approaches. Or you cancustomize it and choose from what we call

(11:09):
our static options, where you pickthe fund or the portfolios can kind of
customize things based on your risk.So what Dreamhead offers is a great deal
more flexibility for savers who have morecomfort, say with investments and traditional investment
markets, or they want to doget in dream Ahead together. They want

(11:31):
to get for the peace of mindfor some of it, and on the
other side, they may want toconsider taking on some more risks with their
potential for some higher earnings. Andso there is the best place for people
to start though, if they wantto think about these two options is five
two nine dot WA dot gov.So five two nine dot WA dot JOVI

(11:52):
and you can learn about five twonine plans. You can learn about GET
and Dream Ahead, how they're similar, how they're different, how they can
work together to say for the fullcost of college. So that's a great
starting point for families. And thelast couple of things I think I want
to make sure we highlight what we'retalking today is we do have some exciting
things going on. As we talkedabout, the GET enrollment period is winding

(12:13):
down for the year. May thirtyfirst is your last chance to get in
at this year's price. We willbe reopened again in November, but over
the summer we set a new priceand it would likely go up because tuition
is set to go up. Sothat's something to keep in mind. And
right now, something really fun we'vebeen doing. This is our second year
doing it is an art contest.So if people go to our website,

(12:35):
they can learn about art contest goingon right now. It is rolling right
now and it ends May fifth,and it's for K through twelve students and
they can submit their art with thechance to win a variety of prizes.
And we're partnering with schools too,and if the schools can also potentially qualify

(12:56):
for some things for like their schoollibrary. It's a really cool and it
was really really popular last year.We got so many great entries and amazingly
talented students that we can already sellthose students. So many of these students
are already ready for their next theirnext step of like what they want to
do for their career and what itwill take for them to get there.

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So we're really excited about that.So I want to make sure that people
notice that when they come to ourwebsite too and check that out, that
no strings attached. It's just afun way for us to get the word
out about college savings and help studentsshowcase their talents. You may have cultivated
a bunch of our students. Yeah, yeah, that's our hope. And
it's amazing how talented. Some ofthese kids are way more talented than me.

(13:41):
Let's just say that But the bestthing I feel like I'm sated for
is to help get the word outabout college savings and how parents can help
again give their their students the giftof education, which we know is a
gift that keeps on giving in thefuture because the opportunities that are on locks
for a student. And again,I really want to emphasize for parents out

(14:03):
there listening or grandparents too, whomaybe you know, there's a lot of
conversation happening right now about college andwhat is the value of college in this
modern age. And we know thatcollege is going to continue to be incredibly
valuable for you know, when wetalk about college in like the four year
university setting, that's still going tobe a very valuable experience for many students.
But many students don't need or wantthat. They want something more like

(14:24):
an apprenticeship or technical training because theyhave a very specific career goal that requires
very specialized training. Good news isyou can use these fiveteen nine accounts for
those sames to say, for thosesame types of expenses. Yep, very
good. Luke Minor is the executivedirector of WA five two nine. You

(14:46):
just go to five two nine,do WA dot gov and they've also got
people on the phone. You canget those phone numbers at that website.
That'll help you break this all downand help you pick the right plant.
Sounds great. Yeah, five ninetof govs starting point for our family.
Think about it when your kids areyoung and and get the family involved.
You know, it takes a village. So anyway, thanks for having us

(15:09):
on. They really appreciate it.Always appreciate the work you're doing in the
community to get the word out abouta variety of important things. I appreciate
you. Thank you well, Thankyou so much, and have a good
weekend to bye now bye.