By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

State Treasurer Roby Smith is celebrating the ISave 529 state educational savings plan today, on May 29th, or “529 Day”.

Smith says there have been some changes made in the plan recently. “We raised the contribution amount that can run off on their Iowa taxes to 58-hundred dollars ($5,800) per individual. Also, they can spend the money that they accrue in there for K through 12 tuition, apprenticeship programs, and trade school. They can even do a student loan repayment up to $10,000 if they’d like,” Smith says.

Smith says you can tailor the plan to how aggressive you want to be in planning for the future. “If they want to have a little bit more risk, they can go ahead and invest in something that covers the entire stock market. If they want to have a little bit less risk, they can do more bonds, less stock market. It just depends what their risk tolerance is,” Smith says. He says the earlier you start, the more money you’ll have to pay for your child’s education. “If you think about this way, if you have 18 years, if you start when you’re a child is first born, and you put in two dollars a day, less than a cup of coffee, you’ll have over $13,000 in contributions by the time they turn 18,” Smith says. “And that doesn’t even count any growth in the investment that they could have.”

Changes in state and federal law now allow you to use that account after your child later in life. “If there’s money left over on the account and you’ve had it open for at least 15 years, you can turn over up to 35-thousand dollars. You can put it into your child’s Roth IRA. Not only do you help them for school, but now you can set them up for retirement,” he says.

Smith says you can start an account with a little as $25 by going to iowa529.com.