Jonathan Hughes: [00:00:00] Sorry, I can never do this very elegantly. Okay, well thank you, for joining me for MEFA’s Power of the U.Plan Prepaid Tuition Program. I really, really like the U.Plan as a program. It’s a wonderful program. It’s a prepaid tuition program. It’s unique. Unlike the 529 plan, not every state has a prepaid tuition program.

I am always encouraging people to save in any way that they can. Any way that you do save is a good way to save, but I really like talking about the U.Plan and how you can use this because it is a plan that is not as well [00:01:00] understood perhaps as the 529. So, let me just go ahead here, and before I get started, just wanna introduce you to myself.

My name is Jonathan Hughes. I’m the Associate Director of College Planning and Content Creation at MEFA. I also host the MEFA Podcast. I’ve been over at MEFA for over 20 years, helping Massachusetts families to prepare for college. And MEFA does a lot of different things, but as I said before, I really like talking about savings in particular.

I like talking about U.Plans. So, and the reason for it is because that savings always helps. No matter what, you know, your plans are, no matter what happens, you really can’t hurt yourself by saving for college. We’re gonna dive into it, but before we do, I want to talk to you about MEFA.

MEFA is the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. We were created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts back in 1982, and we have a public service mission to help families to plan, save, and pay for college. Now, initially [00:02:00] what we were created to do in 1982 was to offer a loan, which is something that we still do.

We offer a fixed interest rate loan. However, you know, since the cost of college has risen, of course, since 1982, simply offering a loan isn’t really going to help as much as we can help families to attain college. So, we have two savings program, the first of which is the U.Plan. So we created the U.Plan back in 1995.

So this one of a handful of states that offers a prepaid tuition plan. And we also do a lot of outreach in education and guidance surrounding all topics related to planning and saving and paying for college. So that’s aside from saving college, admissions, financial aid, comparing college loans, all of this is just to say, you know, if you have questions, which you will, between now and the time your child is ready to go to college or even after, we are a free resource for you to consult with any questions that you may [00:03:00] have.

So please feel free to call us. To email us to set up a one-on-one appointment. We’ll have our information, I think, near the end, and you’ll also have my particular information when I send out the recordings and the slides to you. So don’t hesitate to use that as well as we go through this presentation.

If you would like to ask a question, submit it through the q and a. The chat has been disabled, so we don’t do the chat. But I should be able to check the Q and A throughout the presentation. I’ll do that. If I don’t see it right away, I will get to it at the end at, promise. You should ask questions, especially with a program like the U.Plan.

You’re bound to have some questions. And so the U.Plan really, you know, as I said, I worked in MEFA. I started working in MEFA over 20 years ago. I didn’t have anything to do with the U.Plan at first. I was strictly on the loan side, and then the U.Plan seemed really confusing to me. And then when I [00:04:00] started working with the plan, I understood it. I loved it.

And so for many years I actually worked with the U.Plan account. So when people called up and wanted to know about their U.Plan savings and what it was worth at a college and how they were doing, I would actually get to see those accounts and talk to those families. So I’m very familiar with what a great plan the U.Plan really is.

But I think a lot of people want to compare and contrast it to the 529 plan, or actually they think because the MEFA 529 plan for Massachusetts is called the U.Fund. They even have similar names. A lot of people get confused between the two. So we’re gonna start off talking about the difference between the U.Plan and the U.Fund.

Though I should stress that you can use. Both. You can’t participate in both programs. Um, but we’ll talk about the difference between them. Uh, we’ll talk about the basics of the U plan, the benefits. So why it’s a good program in particular. Um, you know, aside from just the, the general sort of benefits that you get from saving, um, the [00:05:00] participate in colleges, which is, uh, a part of the program that we’ll talk about.

How the U Plan interacts with financial aid, how you actually enroll in the U plan, and then managing your account, uh, online and all the different things that you can do online. So, um, as I said, uh, when we can, as we go through, if you have questions, submit it through the q and a.

Okay. So. Here’s a couple of differences between the U Plan and the U fund. So I know a lot of people, you know, a lot of people are familiar with five 20 nines. Five 20 nines have really become, uh, the most popular college saving vehicle, um, among families in the country. So, uh, that way that program works in general is you put money in, it’s invested in the market, it grows without taxes as long as you.

Take the funds out and use them for eligible expenses. You don’t pay any taxes on the earnings. That’s how a 5 29 works. And every state has a 5 29 plan in Massachusetts. It’s the U [00:06:00] Fund 5 29 college savings plan. And that, again, is a mefa offering as well. Um, so how the money grows in a 5 29, as I said, it grows tax free in the market.

In the U plan, you put money in. It’s invested not in the market, but in, uh, general obligation bonds that are backed by the full faith and credit of the Commonwealth. So, um, it grows at CPI Consumer Price Index or the rate of inflation, and it is not subject to. Market volatility, uh, the ups and downs of the market, that is like the U fund is.

Um, so that’s, that’s a big difference right away. So invested in bonds backed by the Commonwealth versus the stock market. So what you can use the U Fund 5 29, uh, college savings plan for, um, a lot of the benefits of that 5 29 is you can use it for a wide variety of, of, um, expenses. So tuition. Fees, housing, food, uh, books, supplies, equipment at [00:07:00] colleges.

Uh, for the U plan. You can use it for at participating colleges for tuition and mandatory fees only, so it locks in a percentage. And we’ll talk about this of tuition and mandatory fees. Uh, so where you can use the funds. The you fund, you can use at any accredited college or country, uh, at any accredited college in the country.

And even some international colleges, or you can use it at vocational schools and you can also use it now at K through 12 schools. So, uh, 5 29 plans have been expanded quite a bit over the years and the most recent one happening in this last, uh, legislation. You’ve heard of the big, beautiful bill that, um, that expanded the five 20 nines to, um.

Vocational colleges and expanded the uses, or sorry, vocational programs and career training programs and expanded the uses. Uh, at K through 12 and the amount that you could spend on K on K through 12. So, uh, a lot of different uses there. For the U plan, [00:08:00] this is for use at 70 plus participating Massachusetts colleges and universities.

You can also, we’ll go over this, but you can also cash the funds out if. The child doesn’t end up going to one of those colleges. Um, it is for an undergraduate degree program only. Whether you fund is for undergraduate or graduate program, as I said, or K through 12 apprenticeships, et cetera. Um, and what if the student does not attend college?

Funds can be withdrawn in the U plan without tax or ramifications or penalties. So you can get what you put in plus the interest back to the owner with no taxes on the earnings for the U fund. Uh, it can be withdrawn again, but there is a tax penalty associated with the earnings that is a 10% penalty on the earnings and the earnings would be taxed at the owner’s rate of income.

Um, now if. That, that you’ve saved in the U fund and the child ends up, um, yeah, and the child ends up not, uh, going to college or, or going a route that you can [00:09:00] use, uh, the way you initially intended and you don’t want to take that tax hit. There is an option now where you can sort of gradually transfer those funds over to a Roth IRA for the student in, in their retirement.

Um, so. That is generally a breakdown of the differences between the U Fund and the U plan. Um, so the U fund, again, you put money in, it’s, it’s invested in the market. It grows without taxes, as long as you use it on qualified educational expenses, you don’t pay taxes. That’s generally the program. And then there are a lot of different ways that you can do that.

For the U plan, it’s more targeted. Um, you put money in, it’s invested in general obligation bonds that are backed by the Commonwealth. You can use them for undergraduate education, tuition and mandatory fees at participating colleges. And if the student doesn’t end up going to a college that’s on the list, you can, uh, tr uh, cash the funds out and get what you put in plus the interest back.

Lemme [00:10:00] check that q and A here just a minute. Nothing yet. Okay. Now, the way that you plan works, um, I wanna just sort of, it’s, it is a little tricky to talk about it. First you have to kind of understand it full scope. So you put money in it locks in a percentage of tuition and fees at this year’s tuition cost at each participating college.

College. And then whenever you use the funds, you have that percentage of that year’s funds available. And I’ll show you this. S hopefully make it a little bit clearer for you. So if you put in $1,500 in 2025, which is the most recent year, you could do that. If the college is $15,000, you bought 10% of tuition.

If the child ends up going to college in 2035 and tuition has increased to 30,000, well you still have 10%. You have 10% of $30,000 because tuition has gone up to 30,000. You locked in 10%. Your [00:11:00] 10% is now worth $3,000 because it’s 10% of. Tuition when your child is going to college. So it keeps pace with the rise in tuition.

Um, so that is generally how the program works. You don’t have to select a college when you put funds in. There is 70 plus participating colleges in the plan. You put in a certain amount of money. That’s gonna buy a varying percent of tuition at each college, depends on what tuition is at that college this year.

And when the time comes to use the money, you just tell us which college the student is going to and we’ll calculate the value of that in the current year. Um, now you can add year after year and keep adding to your percentages, uh, or you can move on to other maturity years or you can just not. Um, the other thing you.

Well, again, we, we’ve stressed before, and I wanna stress that again. The U plan locks in only tuition and mandatory fee expenses. So there’s a tuition figure that colleges give us, and there’s a mandatory fee figure that the [00:12:00] colleges give us. So what are mandatory fees? Mandatory fees are fees that every student has to pay.

Regardless of their major, regardless of whether or not they’re living on campus and regardless of their year. So room and board. Uh, the u plan doesn’t cover room and board because not every student is going to be living on campus. Uh, freshman orientation fees are specific to freshmen, of course, so that’s not gonna be included in the mandatory fee figure.

Um. And then things like, you know, lab fees or something like that, that are associated with particular majors are not going to be included. So it’s tuition and mandatory fees being, you know, fees that everybody has to pay. Now I see a, a question coming in here. Our contributions to the U plan tax deductible annually?

That’s a good question. So in Massachusetts, uh, there is a tax deduction that you can claim for contributions on your state income taxes to, uh, either the U fund or you plan or, or both. [00:13:00] Um, and that that is up to a certain limit. That is a $1,000 limit for, uh, individual filers, or $2,000 for married filers.

That limit is per filer. So, um, not not per account. So if you have three different children, you’re putting in 2000, 2000, 2000. Unfortunately, you’re, you’re, um, well unfortunately you’re not, you’re a tax, tax, uh, deduction that you can claim is, is still only 2000. ’cause that limit is per filer, but there is a tax deduction available.

So thank you for, for asking it.

Oh, excuse me. Okay. So as I mentioned before, you’re locking in a percentage of each participating college, uh, in the plan of which there are over 70. So for example, college A is 15,000, college B 30,000, college C is 50,000. Your $1,500. Initial investment will buy a different percentage of tuition at each of those colleges.

Uh, you can go online [00:14:00] and, and check your, your balance that you have. Uh. Purchased. And you’ll also receive every year an annual statement that shows you what you put in the interest that has accrued on it, and of all the participating colleges in the plan, what percentage of tuition you’ve purchased at that particular college.

So you’ll be able to sort of track and see if you have a college in mind. Um, you know, what, uh, how close are you to, to being able to pay your, your target to save your target percentage. So as far as how the plan actually works, um, how you contribute to the plan, you can open an account at any point. Um, I mentioned earlier that, uh, our, our typical.

Action for you to accomplish after this is to go and open an account right away, of course, but this year it’s a little different. Um, we are ex, we are migrating to a different servicer. Um, [00:15:00] and that takes place next week, February 17th. So, um, you know, if you went tonight and you opened an account. We’d have to tell you to open another account next week on the 17th.

So don’t open an account today, wait till February 17th if you wanted to do that to open your U Plan account. After that, you can open a U Plan account at any time throughout the year. Um, and you can contribute to that, either one lump sum, or you can, you know, send in a check. You can do a transfer from your banking account, or you can set up automatic.

Uh, re automatically recurring contributions from a bank account. Uh, or if your employer does direct deposit, you could do that as well. So you can set up automatic withdrawals or recurring payments, whatever you wanna say. Um, and that can go directly into your you plan. You can do it monthly or quarterly or whatever you want.

Um, you know, that money would accumulate throughout the year. And then at the end [00:16:00] of our Calen, not our calendar year, our, our sort of, um, u plan year, uh, the fiscal year on July 15th. We’ll take whatever you have saved in the U plan throughout the year. Up to that point, uh, the minimum is $300 to purchase a U Plan certificate.

Uh, so if you have below $300, you’re not going at, at the time of July 15th, you’re not going to be. Locking in a percentage ’cause you, you didn’t accrue enough money to purchase a certificate. But if you have over $300, no matter, you know, depending on the, the amount that you put in, that is the amount that will purchase your certificate and set, you know, your contribution for the year, the percentage that you have locked in at each participating college and university.

Um. So you lock in a, a corresponding value. So if you have a thousand dollars in your account, or $1,500 from our example on July 15th, well then $1,500 [00:17:00] is gonna be the amount that, uh, buys the bond and it’s going to buy be $1,500 at college A, at college B, at college of C, et cetera. Um, there is above the $300 minimum, there’s no maximum.

So you can put in as much as you like, um, and you are not required. To be a resident of Massachusetts, even though all the participating colleges are in Massachusetts, uh, you can take pla, you can take part in the e plan from any state, but that is the amount, uh, that your contribution will be set at whatever is in your account on July 15th of the, the year that you’re purchasing.

Um, after that, you know, let’s say you have. Purchase a certificate and you have a recurring draft that’s going out every month, um, you’re gonna start over and put funds again towards your next contribution year. Or if you didn’t have $300, the amount that you have left in your account will stay there.

[00:18:00] And you know, again, if you’re continuing to add to it, perhaps next year, you would have enough to purchase a certificate. I see someone else has a question here, so get that. Okay. Not exactly a question, but, um, okay. And this is something that I wanted to, to sort of discuss. So, funds deposited, for example, by July 15th, 2026, will lock in a portion of the 20 26, 20 27 academic year tuition and mandatory fees.

Uh, so we shut off all the contributions. July 15th, there’s a two week. Blackout period before the bond purchase. Remember, we, we, um, invest your funds in general obligation bonds. Uh, that is com that is completed by August 1st by, by the beginning of August. Uh, so there’s that two week blackout period and then your funds, whatever you have [00:19:00] purchased, buys a percentage of tuition for that approaching academic year.

So it can be a little bit tricky because sometimes we may not have. The academic year tuition for those colleges, yet we send out notifications to colleges asking them to get us their tuition figures. Uh, over the summer. Some colleges are able to do that right away and some of them are not. Uh, so if you have a college in mind and you want to know exactly what percentage.

You are going to be purchasing, um, you wouldn’t be looking at the published figures ’cause that would be a year behind. You could call us and see, uh, or, or check your online account and see if the 20 26, 20 27 tuition and fee figures have been updated yet for your school. Um, and, uh, you know, if, if not you, there may be a little bit of guesswork if you wanna be, uh, if you wanna shoot for a particular percentage and you don’t know what the percentage is going up to.

You know, there, there may be some sort of estimating there, or you can call us up and sort of get an idea of when, [00:20:00] uh, if the colleges have submitted their tuitions yet and you’re not seeing it online yet. Um, but that’s important to note that. Contributions throughout the year by percentage of tuition for that upcoming year.

Funds deposited after August 1st, 2026 through July 15th, 2027 will lock in the 20 27, 20 28. It should say academic year tuition and mandatory fees. So again, that same principle there.

So some benefits of this U plan. So money grows federal and Massachusetts state tax free in these general obligation bonds, kind of the way it does in in the U fund. Um, savers, as you mentioned, somebody had the question, can claim a Massachusetts state income tax deduction of up to $1,000 for single filers, or $2,000 for married filers filing jointly.

Um. No need to select a college until it’s time to attend, so you don’t have to select. [00:21:00] You know, or know or have some idea where your child is going to be going to college. Um, I know that that is a common worry that people have. And then of course, people have the question, the obvious question, well, what happens if my child doesn’t end up going to one of those colleges or universities?

Well, if that’s the case, you have a couple of options. Uh, first of all, if the maturity year is approaching and we’re in touch with you and you’re we’re saying your money is maturing, how do you want to use these funds? And your plans are not final or the child is attending someplace else, uh, but you think they might change their mind.

You think you might be able to use the funds later at a later date. You can tell us to hold, uh, that you don’t wanna do anything with these funds at this time, and you can do that for a period of up to six years after maturity and we’ll, we’ll talk about that later. Um, you can also transfer the funds over to another beneficiary within the family.

So if that’s an option, let’s say you have, uh, some money saved [00:22:00] for an oldest sibling and they’re not gonna be able to use the funds, uh, in the way that you intended, but you have a younger child or a cousin or an aunt or whoever, um, that you think may be able to use the funds within that six year window or so that, that you have, you can transfer.

The account over to that person. And then if you can’t do either one of those things, you can cash out and get what you put in. Plus the interest back with no tax ramifications, at least no, no Massachusetts tax, uh, consequences and no federal tax consequences as well if you’re from another state and participating.

Check with the laws of your state. Um, can’t speak for all of those, but uh, at least in terms of Massachusetts and federally, there are no tax ramifications for cashing out.

And here is, uh, a. Shot of all the participating u plan colleges and universities in the program? Um, I will say that, um, sometimes [00:23:00] colleges drop off, sometimes college may be added. Um, but generally speaking it stayed pretty static. Uh, since I’ve been working with the U plan, there have been some colleges.

Uh, that are no longer in the U plan, but it’s not because they left the U plan. Uh, they may have closed or they may have, um, been merged with other colleges. Um, but generally speaking, you know, there’s, there’s a, a good cross section of public, private, uh, and community colleges listed here. Um. There’s also a u plan agreement that schools have to have to honor.

And I think we talk about that later on, so I won’t talk about it yet, but if we don’t, I’ll bring that up. Uh, so what that means is that, you know, if anyone joins or, or leaves, you shouldn’t worry about that. But this is. This is the Listing of Colleges, and that’s on our [email protected] as well. And here we go.

So, um, if there are changes to [00:24:00] the participating school list, if a college or university joins the e plan, it must honor their certi. The certificates purchased since the program started in 1995, so this sort of grandfathering in all the existing accounts and, and agreeing to, uh. Honor that percentage of, of that purchase percentage of tuition that people purchased since 1995.

And if a college or university leaves the program, it must honor all of the tuition certificates that were purchased prior to the year that it withdrew from the program. So it has to honor all of those certificates that were already existing. So again, you shouldn’t worry, um, if you have a college on the list, if it, if it leaves the program, it has to honor those certificates.

So I wanna talk about the U plan and financial aid. A lot of people, uh, are sort of worried about not just the U [00:25:00] plan specifically, but savings in general when it comes to financial aid. And so, um, what I will say about it is. When you’re applying for financial aid and you’re doing your CSS profile form or your FAFSA form, um, and they’re asking for what parents make and then what parents have as assets.

And then what students make, and then what students have as assets. Those are the main, those four things, parent income, parent assets, student income, and student assets. Those are the four main pillars that determine how much financial aid that you’re eligible for, at least need based financial aid. And so the U plan, if it is owned by the parent, and it doesn’t have to be, uh, you know, other people can’t own the U plan.

So grandparents can own a u plan for a grandchild or aunts or uncles can own a U plan for a nephew or a niece. Um, but, um, assuming the [00:26:00] parent owns the U plan, then the U plan is considered a parent asset and not an asset of the child. And so the good thing about that is that parent assets count. On the FAFSA or or the profile, they’ll take a look at what you have and they’ll take a piece of that amount as to what they expect you to pay for that year.

For parents though, that percentage is lower than parent parent income. Student income or student assets. So most of the weight in the financial aid formula is gonna sit on that parent income piece and not parent assets. So parent assets already count for as only as much as 5.6%. So if you have, you know, certain amount in assets, say have $10,000 in assets, they’ll take 5.6% of that is what they’re gonna expect you to pay from that for college.

So it’s a really small amount. Now, uh, the good [00:27:00] thing about that too is that when they’re looking at the U plan, they’re not looking at the value of that percentage. So let’s say if you have 30% of tuition at a, at a college, that that costs, uh, $30,000. They’re not gonna say, oh, okay, that’s worth $10,000. So if you’ve get $10,000 in assets, they’re not gonna do that.

They’re gonna take the amount that you have saved, the actual just dollar amount. That you have saved. So again, let’s say it’s that $1,500 or something that you put in, they’re not gonna say, well, that’s 10% of tuition. They’re gonna say that’s $1,500. So 5.6% of $1,500 is something like 700 and you know, 50, I’m bad at math, but it’s something along those lines.

So they’re taking the smaller portion of that. Um, so just to let you know, the you plan. Like most other college savings, they don’t significantly impact a student’s eligibility for financial aid. Um, unless you have a ton of money saved, uh, or as an asset to use to pay for [00:28:00] college, um, it, it, it wouldn’t really significantly impact that.

Again, 5.6%. So, um, you know, it does count a little bit, but not. Much and not, of course, nearly as much as it benefits you to have the asset there. So, um, when people are filing their financial aid forms, they’re looking for what you have and what the interest that accrued in that was. And again, only for the student that you’re filing the financial aid forms, not, they don’t want you to include other siblings or whatever accounts that you may have.

Um, on that one, student’s. FAFSA to your or CSS profile. So that was a change that happened, uh, a year or two ago as well. So that benefits families too. So, uh, again, savings doesn’t significantly impact your eligibility most times for financial aid. Now, how you enroll again, this will look different next week slightly, um, than it does right now.

But, and again, I would [00:29:00] caution you to wait until next week to, uh, to. Start your application if you wanted to do that. Um, you just go to, you plan, uh, you go to mefa.org, find the ways to save header here. It’ll take you to, you plan, you fund, et cetera. You click on you plan, and then you click on start Saving here and it will take you to this page.

And this is the upcoming page. So, um. If you were an existing borrower and you wanted to register a borrower, if you were existing saver and you wanted to register for online account access, you do this. But since you’d be a new customer, you click and roll now and then you’d have to set up your user ID and your password and select your, um, security questions and, and fill out your application.

And so when you’re filling out your application, um. This is, these are the things that you need to do. Uh, and it shouldn’t take you more than about 10, 15 minutes. To do so, you [00:30:00] have to provide information on the account owner and who is the account owner as your first decision that you have to make. The account owner is the person who.

Transacts on the account, right? So it’s the person who decides what to do with the funds, take the funds out, and send ’em to this college or that college, uh, or to the owner themselves. So who is going to be in control of that, that account? This is not the child, this is the adult owner of the account. Put name, date of birth, social security number, address, et cetera.

Second decision designated beneficiary. The beneficiary is going to be the intended student, right? So, um, who’s the student that you’re saving for? Uh, they have to put their social security number, date of birth address, and the relationship to the owner, although there does not have to be a specific relationship to the owner, so it doesn’t have to be a child or grandchild or within the family.

It can be anybody opening an account for, for any student. Um. [00:31:00] You can, it’s optional, but you can designate a successor owner. A successor owner is somebody who can easily assume control of the account should something happen to the owner. If the owner were to pass away or become incapacitated in some way, then it could go over to that successor owner.

Now, the successor owner, in order to. Assume control of an account, they need to be 18 years of age. So a lot of times people assume that it will automatically pass to the beneficiary, the child beneficiary. It can’t really do that in most cases unless the beneficiary is 18. So that’s why it’s beneficial to have a successor.

Now, you don’t need to designate a successor when you are setting up a U Plan account. It’s optional. So you can skip that and if you have an existing account, you can. Add a successor to it. Uh, so that’s always a step that you can, um. Take after you set up your account. ’cause you have to [00:32:00] have that person’s information name, social security number, date of birth, address, et cetera.

And sometimes you don’t have that person’s information when you’re setting this up. Uh, the, the last and probably most important part here is selecting your maturity years. And so this is, um, I wanna spend a few minutes talking about this. So when you’re putting money in. And you’re deciding how much money you’re going to put in.

So those are the things that you need to decide. How much am I putting in? How often, so am I putting in a thousand dollars lump sum? Am I putting in a hundred dollars every month? How much am I doing? How often am I doing it? And then how right am I writing a check? Am I uh, providing a bank so that you can take it from my bank account?

Once all of that stuff is done, actually, before you get to that, in the new one, you have to designate your maturity years. And this is really important when it comes to the U plan. Because remember I keep saying you put money in. It buys a percentage of tuition [00:33:00] and ba, you know, however much that percentage is.

You have that percentage when your student goes to college. Well, what we actually do is base that on your maturity years that you select. So the, the, the maturity years are the bond maturity years. You’re putting in money, it’s invested in a bond. It doesn’t become liquid until it matures. So. You wanna pick one or more of the years that your child is going to be in college or that you, you anticipate that your child will be in college.

So, uh, this can be kind of tricky to figure out because especially with really young children, you don’t always know. It’s not always easy to figure out what year they’re going to start college. Right. Um. And it should be noted that accounts mature August 1st of their maturity year. So if you have accounts maturing in, uh, 2030, that’s August 1st, 2030.

Don’t think calendar year, think school year. [00:34:00] So what year, what school year is my child or my beneficiary going to start college? And you can put all of your money into one year. You can spread it out over two, three or four years. It’s up to you. Um, and so when you’re, when you’re doing this and when you’re, let’s say you’re setting up something that you are going to take funds out, uh.

On an ongoing basis, you’re going to be contributing from a bank account. Um, how, what percentage of this contribution is going to go to what year? So if you’re selecting one maturity year, let’s say some people do, they want to get that first year taken care of. If they can, you want to put a hundred percent in that first year that you designate that the student is going to be attending.

Um, if you want to do all four years, you could do 25%, 25%, 25%, and 25%. Now, on our system, as we’re going through, they’ll say, okay, you said that the beneficiary was [00:35:00] born in this year, based on our calculations, they should start college in this year. So, um, you can, you know, you can sort of use that as a guide.

Now, of course, that’s not set in stone, right? People, uh. Repeat years, they might skip a year. You might be a year off. Maybe the child ends up, um, if they’re on the cusp there of their birthday, they might not start until a year later than you initially, uh, determined. If that’s the case. That is if you have a year, if you were off in selecting your maturity years, um, there’s a couple of things you can do.

You can write to Mifa, you can request a maturity year change. And if we are able to do that, we will do that. Um, we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to do that because it, it depends on, uh, bonds that we own. We have to swap out bonds with bonds that Mifa owns and that match up with your purchase year and your intended maturity year.

Uh, but we will work to try to do [00:36:00] that, um, if we can’t. Worst case scenario, um, if you are a year early. For example, if you said, my child is gonna attend college in 2030 and they end up attending in 2031, we can hold the account the certificates until six years after they mature. Right? So we can just hold that account and use it a year later, and that’s fine.

But one thing that you need to understand about that is that the, the value is determined on the maturity year. So if. You put in a thousand dollars that purchased 10% of tuition because tuition was $10,000. And you said, okay, my child’s gonna go in 2030. Well, 2030 comes along and you know, college at that, uh, that particular tuition at that particular college is now, uh, 20,000.

So it’s gone up from your 10% has gone up from 1000 to 2000. That’s great. But you say, okay, I wanna use it a year later. It doesn’t increase from that one year. After [00:37:00] maturity to the year that you use it. So it freezes tuition through maturity at a particular college, but then, uh, it, it doesn’t continue to keep pace with the rise in tuition after it matures.

So you still get all the savings up until that one year, and then you, you sort of don’t, but, um, it does still. Continue to gain interest after it matures and that interest is always sent out to the owner, uh, that post maturity interest. Um, and then if you are again, a year later, again, we can see if we can sort of, um, bring that down if we’re able to do that.

And, uh, again, no guarantee, but we, we, we do try to do that when people, um, send in that request. And then of course, you know, you, you look at all the information that you input and, and submit and, and, um, sort of have online access to your account. I. Went through [00:38:00] selecting maturity years. Uh, and then as I said, you can, there’s lots of different ways that you can, uh, put funds into the e plan.

You can send in a check, you can, um, there are gift cards as well that people can purchase and, uh, and send into their. Uh, you, you play an account, um, people can purchase gift cards for beneficiaries as well. You can either buy those at physical locations in Massachusetts or a virtual card from mifa.org.

Um, you can also, uh, starting in with the new system, they accept PayPal and Venmo transactions as well. Um, so there’s lots of different ways that you can add funds to the U plan. Really trying to make it as easy, uh, as as possible to add funds. Again, you can do that throughout the year, with the exception of that two week blackout period from July 15th to August 1st that we’re sending funds in.

Uh, but other than that, it’s all year round. And of course you can manage your account [00:39:00] online as well. So you can, you have online access to your account, you can review your statements, check your balance. You can request a disbursement when it’s time to send funds to the college or to yourself. Uh, as the owner, you can do that online.

Um, you can open a new account for a new beneficiary. So if you have somebody that you’re saving for within the family and you wanna add another account for a new beneficiary, you can open that. Um, of course you can add and also change your contact information as well so you can really fully manage your account online.

And of course, we have dedicated representatives in the you plan to help you out. Um, so next steps, wait a week. [email protected]. Um, we’ll send statements out. Um, you can sign up for Mefa emails to, to receive. Sort of, you know, tips and, and, uh, information on college savings. You can also use MI a’s college cost projector to [00:40:00] estimate future college costs.

So based on the increases of tuition, um, you know, what are particular colleges or types of colleges really. Expected to, uh, to cost in, in years ahead. You can use that in conjunction with the, uh, or, or to, in order to help you plan for your u plan savings. Um, I know that there’s a lot of questions about the U plan, so I’m gonna hang out, uh, if you have any, uh, if you wanna connect with us, this is our social media information, so Facebook.

Instagram X, um, LinkedIn, YouTube, and the Mefa podcast. Uh, we just celebrated the 30th anniversary of the U Plan and, um, to sort of honor that or celebrate that, we had three different U Plan families come and talk to us about their history with the U plan. So if you’re, um. Curious and you want to hear from actual families and how they did with the U plan.

Um, you know that that’s a great resource. And again, I know that, uh, the U plan is not as easy to [00:41:00] understand sometimes as a 5 29 plan. Um. But having worked with the accounts and having, you know, seen people and their accounts and when they call up and, and sort of directed their distributions and whatnot, um, I, I just know that it’s a really great plan and it’s worth taking a look at and really listening to people’s stories about it and considering that.

Um, so if you have any questions about anything, so eight hundred four four nine mefa, you can call us. You can email us at college [email protected]. Um. Yeah. Other than that, I’ll, I’ll hang on and wait for questions if there are any.

No, no. Que okay. Well, thank you everybody. Um. [00:42:00] If you have any questions, don’t, don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you.