 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Mohan Kanongo and I'm super excited to be here. Want to thank the San Francisco Public Library for hosting us. I know many of you have been in the earlier sessions and my colleague James and I are super excited to talk to you about how to save for college. So to kick things off I'm going to talk about K2C also known as kindergarten to college but we'll also highlight some additional resources. I'll talk about Cal kids and then we'll go really in depth about what is called 529 accounts which is sponsored by the state of California their scholar share program. If you're just joining we will be recording today's session so if you miss anything you'll be able to go back. I'll share a little bit about K2C and also the Office of Financial Empowerment so you understand our mission and we'll breeze through as much of this as we can so that you can also have time for questions. We'll be monitoring the chat as we go so let us know if there's anything that's unclear or that you want to revisit. I'll talk about K2C as I mentioned some of the benefits of saving with us and talk briefly about Cal kids and 529s and then also let you know how you can stay in touch. So kindergarten to college is an initiative part of the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment and we're housed within the office of the San Francisco treasure and our mission is to convene innovate and advocate to strengthen the economic security and mobility of all San Franciscans. Kindergarten to college is one of the flagship programs but we want to make sure that you're aware of other initiatives including smart money coaching which I believe many of you have heard about it's an opportunity to receive free financial coaching if you live work or receive services in San Francisco that includes being able to review your credit report, create a debt repayment plan, review your budget, lots of really cool resources. We also have bank on which is an opportunity to get connected to a safe and affordable checking account and we champion a number of different pilots including guaranteed income and work to help borrowers with student debt repayment. So check out the Office of Financial Empowerment in addition to K2C and for the sake of time I won't show you our video called A Future We're Saving For but later I'll drop this into the chat. I really encourage you to check it out. There's nothing better than hearing from the participants themselves about the value of a program like K2C. So what is kindergarten to college? So about 11-12 years ago we launched K2C. Jose Cisneros the San Francisco Treasures started this and every student in the San Francisco Unified School District gets a savings account opened in their name with an initial C to $50. So now our oldest students have actually graduated class of 2023 and so we're super excited not only to have students save for college but to get them their money for college. And why is this important? So research shows that just having a savings account in your name can increase the likelihood of you going to college. It can also increase the likelihood of you graduating from college and having an account matters more than just how much money is there. So small amounts of savings really help create what we call a future orientation or a college going mindset and culture and it helps you as a parent or a loved one for a niece or nephew or even older sibling to really encourage that sense of possibility talking to them about what they're interested in what they want to do with their lives and what impact they want to have. With K2C we have over 52,000 accounts with an average balance for those who've saved of just over a thousand bucks and to date over the 12 years or so over the program we've helped folks save over 15 million dollars. What I'm really proud about from that is that two-thirds of that 15 million dollars includes money that have come those come from participants themselves whereas one-third comes from money that the city has put into these accounts. So people are saving with the accounts and some of the key features include not having any fees. There's also no impact on public benefits. There's different ways that you can save with the account that we'll learn about in just a bit. This is a dedicated college savings account so it's not a regular checking account however you can make withdrawals in case of a financial hardship so the money that you put in you'll be able to take out if by chance you're facing some financial emergency and you're also able to view your balance online. And as I mentioned these accounts are opened automatically for students so if you have a student who just entered kindergarten or if you have a student who entered SFUSD in a later grade then they started in our they started the semester in late August come October November that's when we're getting new enrollment data and opening accounts for students and then we mail a welcome kit in the mail that has your account number with your student's name how to make deposit brochure and you can get started with saving and then we send an activity statement twice a year towards the end of the semester and that details how much money you've saved how much money you put in how much money the city has put in and we repeat that cycle each semester so look out for a welcome kit or activity statement if you have a student in SFUSD and this is what they look like as I mentioned it'll have the student's name account number and then the activity report is is similar to what you think of as a statement you get from your regular bank detailing how much money is there. As I mentioned there's four different ways to save with K2C you can actually visit a city bank branch city bank is our banking provider you can mail in a deposit and in fact we have prepaid mailed envelopes so that you don't have to pay for postage you can sign up for direct deposit so if you have a regular payment from your employer or social security you can have payroll make a deduction automatically that gets sent into that student's account and you can also sign up for bill pay through your regular bank or credit union and have a payment sent automatically every month or one off with whatever frequency you like. Instead of regular interest we offer what are called incentives and some of these include a save now incentive for those who have just opened their account so if you make a deposit of any amount we'll give you $20 every year we also have a matching incentive that's up to $20 it's a dollar for dollar match so if you put in a dollar we'll match you a dollar if you put in $20 we'll match you 20 bucks and if you put in 50 you'll get 20 bucks we also offer a growth incentive in lieu of traditional interest that kind of functions like interest and it's a small amount that gets credited based on how much money you've contributed to the account and then every year you can register to view your balance online or just log in to view your balance online and we'll give you $20 so that's a way to build up your savings without even having to put in money of your own 20 bucks just by logging in viewing your balance having that conversation with your KO we also do some sizable incentives including our equity incentive this targets elementary school students in the Bayview and Mission District in first to fifth grade and this is an opportunity for them to really build up to $500 in savings rather quickly so in addition to the $50 that every SFUSD student gets they receive an additional $150 seed and then if they make a deposit of $5 they'll get $150 and they can earn that up to two times so that's a really cool way to really build up your savings and we also have a variety of different contests scholarship awards we even do some stuff with the library to award scholarships into students accounts so there's a lot of ways beyond these few that we've highlighted that you can really build your savings and in fact we want to talk to you not just about KSC because maybe you don't have a student in the school district maybe you live outside San Francisco County there's a number of different ways you can still save and you're going to hear about that in a moment from James to give you a preview 529 accounts is a way that you can save with both K2C and what's called California Scholarshare there's a number of different 529 providers but K2C is sponsored by the San Francisco Treasurer's Office and Scholarshare 529 is sponsored by the state Treasurer's Office and we are really excited to allow you to have the benefits of both of these types of accounts so maybe at some point when you save with K2C you realize you want to really maximize your college savings you want that balance to grow you can make the decision to transfer that over into a 529 which is an investment account that allows you to grow your balance with several tax advantages and you can choose different investment options that James can help guide you through and explain more about but one of the cool things with K2C and Scholarshare is you can decide to save with both accounts or you can decide to move your money from K2C over to the 529 and just keep saving with them we're also really excited about Cal Kids Cal Kids is a new statewide initiative launched by Governor Newsom in 2022 and it's there's two components to it there's a newborn component and then there's an opportunity for low-income public school students so again this is California why so if you don't qualify for K2C you or someone you know might qualify for Cal Kids for the newborn component every student sorry every infant born in California after July 1st of 2022 receives at least $25 and this initial seed has actually been bumped up as of July 1st 2023 so I believe that's $100 now and hopefully that'll continue in future years but there's some additional incentives that you can also earn by registering to view your balance to get some added money beyond that initial seed and then for low-income public school students there's a range of an award between $500 and $1500 for that first year that this program was announced yeah Governor Newsom really went big and so any public school student who qualified with the eligibility for being quote unquote low income was able to receive this account from first to 12th grade however every year moving forward it'll be for first grade students so if you have a student who just started this school year in first grade they will receive an account letter in the mail come this summer if they qualify for Cal Kids and some ways that you can qualify for Cal Kids includes essentially receiving free and reduced lunch and that could be because of your income it could also be because you have experienced homelessness or the foster care system if you're a recipient of public benefits if you have been identified as an English language learner there's several different ways that you can actually qualify as being eligible for Cal Kids and so you can go to CalCids.org to learn more and even check to see if you have an account we're going to be wrapping up our portion of the presentation with K2C and just a bit but I want to highlight that for students who've graduated as I've mentioned there's an opportunity for them to clean their money for college so we've already processed now over 1300 payments to the class of 2023 super exciting over a half million dollars has gone to students and we distribute that money directly to participants themselves they can decide how they want to spend that money best for them and they just go to our website K2CSF.org submit a quick form that's how they claim their money they can get it paid to them via Zell check or transfer that balance over to a 529 account you can use the money for a range of different qualified educational expenses and you know you've you know pursued higher education you know if you've continued your education you know there's a lot of different expenses so even a little bit helps but you can imagine that thousand dollars I mentioned that could definitely help go cover for a laptop or you know maybe some of the tuition and book fees for a semester at city college and as I mentioned there's nothing like hearing from the participants themselves about the impact of a program and so you can see here a quote from Tilia we'll drop in a link again to a couple of those videos you can check out and also just see at K2CSF.org lastly we want to make sure that you stay connected with K2C follow us on social media including Instagram and Facebook we have a dedicated Facebook page we have our team who speaks a range of languages I speak Spanish our my colleagues speak Spanish Mandarin in Arabic so please don't reach out you know please reach out to us rather and don't hesitate if there's things you want to know more about we have all of this information in a in a range of languages up on our website we also have a newsletter and YouTube channel where we host videos that you can check out and lastly this is how you can stay in touch so check out our website email us if you have any questions or you can call 311 in San Francisco and we'll get back to you with that want to thank you and we'll see if there's any immediate questions that if not we'll let James take it over well I'm not seeing anything come through quite at this point but if you do have questions I'll just ask that you use the Q&A box for that Mohan's still going to stay on this call to be able to speak to K2C and some some Cal kids questions so if you have those certainly reach out and there's been a great job in sharing some of the information in the links on those programs as well that's already in the chat box for you but with that I'm going to take over a little bit and we are going to put together a small college savings workshop for everybody that's here today ultimately very appreciative to the organizations that have been involved in making this program happen I'm going to switch my presenter view for us and for context for everybody that is here scholarship as Mohan had introduced is California's education savings program it's sponsored by the treasurer's office here in the state of California and it is what is known as a 529 plan so today's workshop is going to be around covering typical common questions around trying to save some money for a child education leading you through different types of accounts all the way to exploring some of the costs but a formal introduction for myself is I am based here in San Francisco I actually live in North Beach which is where I'm coming live from but previous to my role here with the 529 plan in California I did come from the financial planning world as well as operating as a retirement consultant for some of the big firms across the country when I was working as an advisor we actually got contacted the firm that I worked for to provide workshops around the topic of financial aid and 529 plans for students via those PTA and PTA groups and it has been a huge catalyst for myself where I've learned a lot more about this arena than I ever originally intended to and it's been something that's on our end we're incredibly passionate about I'm hoping to share some of that with everybody here today as far as our agenda and the topics we're going to talk about we're going to start up front with just putting some hard numbers to what it actually costs to get a kid through school at this point and for most people this is not necessarily to scare you but it is something that we do have to have some type of context to what those school costs actually look like we'll talk about scholar share ultimately as a fit for families for people that are looking to save and invest for that kids education we'll go through the process very quickly about what it takes to get set up it is incredibly easy and can be done fully online and then if there are some people on this call that already have scholar share accounts happy to speak to some recent inclusions and I'll guess and recently added features to scholar share because there's some resources out there that for certain parts of the population it might be exceptionally helpful we will leave some time for questions at the end so use the Q&A box as I'm going through and I'll just ask that Chris or Mohan can throw me some questions if something does come up and you think it might be the right time for it but if not we'll tackle them at the end starting out and just looking at the average cost of college across the country now here in California the average in-state school tuition for a higher education degree is right around $3100 a year for that tuition the big jumps that most people are familiar with is exploring out-of-state public schools or things like private institutions where that cost really does dramatically increase that big jump to right about $28,000 a year for tuition for those private schools is really where people start to get very scared because it is an expensive lifetime goal for that kid to facilitate them getting their career started but when we think about saving and investing for a kid's education it's not just tuition that notably is one of those big expenses room and board costs whether on or off campus are estimated to be between $16,000 and $17,000 every single year that that student's attending that higher ed facility so it is no question that student loans are an important mechanism on how families actually get a kid through school over half of graduates actually at this point graduate with some type of student loan balance and it on average takes them over 15 years to pay down that student loan student loans in the past couple years have been really a hot topic whether in the workplace at home at the kitchen table or anywhere in between the truth is that student loans are quite simply they're an important mechanism to get a kid through school but they're not notably without side effects a basic concept that we hit on very frequently in one-on-one appointments is the concept of implementing some type of systematic recurring saving strategy for the goal that you're working towards now this is obviously explored under the lens of education savings but the example that you're looking at is the objective of saving $100 a month over the course of 18 years now if you were to continue to do that contribution for all 18 years and have a 7 percent hypothetical annual rate of return your total account value at the end of that period would be right around this $43,000 mark and this is just represents incredibly substantial progress towards a savings goal but it's also going to be important that we talk about how do we tax efficient with the savings that we're doing and understand that under the hood these are investment accounts and so oftentimes people will have questions on that portion too now long in the shorts of this introduction here is we know higher education is expensive I know that I'm not blowing anybody's mind by saying that but the truth is that even saving small dollar amounts are still incredibly impactful and Mohan had hit on that when talking about K2C and making education a reality and a conversation that's had at home now regardless of how old that kid is that you're thinking about saving for there is no point where it is necessarily too late however one of the aspects that is incredibly intriguing in my world is understanding the way that you save and invest for a kid and the impact that it has on the needs-based financial aid that they're eligible to receive so overall we're going to explore a lot of these topics today in really an effort to try to build some acumen around these conversations and then try to give you some resources moving forward to do some more research or seek us out for a bit of help as well now by far and large my favorite slide in this entire presentation is this one right here and this is because on my end I take one-on-one appointment requests I do group education and trying to teach people about college savings and almost always families will come to myself or they'll oftentimes go to their financial planners and ask questions well this is what I've been doing should I change what I've been doing or maybe you could tell me more about a certain type of an account and the truth is is all these jars that you see laid out in front of you are the most common ones that people approach us with questions about now my goal here is to give you a basic introduction to these accounts and explore some of where their tax benefits really are under the lens of education savings now my role here is not of course to be your CPA or to help you file your taxes but I will say that it is important that we understand the basics to some of the tax status of these types of accounts now if we start on the left and go with the first one a custodial account what is oftentimes referred to as a UGMA or a UTMA maybe more formally known as uniform gifts to a minor or uniform transfer to a minor where minor plays a very important keyword with these accounts as they really are a way to make an irrevocable gift to a child that once they become an adult it allows them to spend those funds however they'd like these accounts are oftentimes used as a way to just provide some savings for a kid that they can later on tap for something that they might want and later on in life now in the past these really have been used as a way to fund anything from that first car purchase to down payments on a first home all the way to marriage starting a family and even beyond that sometimes education but the truth is that these accounts are not necessarily well designed from a tax efficiency standpoint for the concept of saving for a kid's education and there's another hidden detail with regards to custodial accounts is that oftentimes these accounts based on the age and when you're filling out financial aid let's say the FAFSA as an example these are oftentimes looked at as student owned and controlled assets which means they have a little bit more level of influence than other types of accounts for the needs based financial aid process looking at the second jar retirement accounts whether this is offered through the workplace in like a 401k plan or a 403b plan or it's an individually established one like an IRA the truth is that the retirement accounts are very well designed around their ability to accumulate and then distribute assets in retirement and I'll take this moment to encourage everybody on the call to not unwind your retirement goals for the purposes of funding a kid's education and this is ultimately because there's no type of a retirement bridge loan to get you into retirement and through retirement it is those student loans that are an important mechanism and they are a piece that are critical for most kids that are going through school now by far and large the most popular way that families will come to us to say I've been saving but I'm not really sure what I'm doing is with a simple savings account a simple savings account is excellent to protect your savings and to allow you to just mentally organize different buckets of money for a particular purpose but there's a couple aspects that really with some of the changes in the past few years that have made these accounts a bit more intriguing when we talk about them for education savings the first of which is that savings accounts the when you have that interest that's paid to you now that interest rates are no longer completely at the floor or at the ground is that any year you have reportable progress in that savings accounts you're going to get a 1099 int form because those earnings are taxable now but the second part of this is that ultimately that savings accounts is really designed to protect the savings that you're doing and it's a great starting place ultimately but we're going to explore some of the tax benefits that do exist with five two nines and a covered else savings accounts in efforts ultimately to show you that there's more tax efficient ways oftentimes to explore saving for a kid's education and so our final two jars here have similar tax status now both of the accounts whether five to nine plans like scholar share or covered out savings accounts sometimes called e s a s allow you to put after tax money into an account invest and then any distributions that you take from that account for a child's education expenses or qualified higher education expenses are completely tax free so they enable you to keep those interests to keep the interest and the earnings that you get in those types of accounts so that they go a little bit farther for higher education expenses now with these two types of accounts there's a few differentiating pieces that have really led to the growth in five to nine plans across the country the first is that covered else savings accounts actually have very strict contribution limits and they also have income limitations and furthermore one of the small details that most families don't necessarily consider right out of the gate is that the funds in a covered else savings accounts actually do have to be spent by the time that child hits age 30 now for most families this isn't what they plan on when that child is first born but the reality is is that that restriction sometimes is something people do bump their head against with five to nine plans there's no type of income limitation and the contribution limits are extremely lofty which really just helps provide very minimal guardrails for the purposes of funding a kid's education and there's no expiration date we're going to talk more so about within scholar share how those different investment options work and ultimately it is something we want to give you some knowledge about the way that california administers this program too scholar shares a program is one of the largest five 29 plans in the entire country we have over a 20 year track record of helping families save invest to ultimately pay for a loved one's education goals we are over 13 billion dollars in assets the state program is huge but at a state level myself and our team is overseen by the scholar share investment board that is chaired by the california state treasurer and and so in doing so us being one of the larger programs we are also known as what's called a direct sold five to nine plan a direct sold five to nine plan does not have any type of a sales load or commission within this account that is payable to myself or anybody else at the organization you don't pay to process transactions whether that's changing investments putting money in or taking money out genuinely the only cost is for the investments that's elected within scholar share at a plan level scholar share is half the national average cost of a five to nine plan and less than a third the cost of advisor sold options and when we talk about every single cost to saving for a kids education the most conventional example of a five to nine plan being owned by a parent for the benefit of that future student is that when we want to keep the doors open on need-based financial aid five to nine plans that are owned by parents do get some advantages due to the nature that the parent is the person in the driver's seat now the maximum level of influence that a five to nine plan can have on the needs-based financial aid process is five point six four percent of the balance and when those funds are spent it does not show up as income when the parent owns it as well so ultimately very important when we know that the financial aid process is the mechanism that students get access to federal subsidized and unsubsidized loans as well so important that we are also being aware that this is something that we have to think about and making sure that those kids still have access to that financial aid when it's so important about how they can go to school with it now thus far i've been very calculated with using a certain phrase and that phrase is qualified higher education expense essentially what can you spend this money on tax-free now at this point even though the state of california helps this program exist the kids themselves can go to any accredited school in the country whether that's to your technicals that is vocational schools trade schools or things like apprenticeship programs all the way to the other side of the spectrum things like postgraduate degrees law schools as long as that institution is accredited by the u.s department of education those funds can be spent on higher education expenses completely tax-free as far as the types of expenses it's things like tuition room and board mandatory fees that are charged by institutions and then out-of-pocket expenses even qualify for this as well for things like laptops or textbooks all the way to printers and internet access really extremely flexible at this point in terms of what you can pay for when we know that not the only cost to get a kid through school is not just tuition anymore now in talking about some of the what-ifs that do exist one of the most popular questions i guess is what if i save for my kid and my kid doesn't go to school now ultimately what i always bring people back to first and foremost is the fact that five two nines do not have an expiration date so sometimes what happens the kid wants to take a pause jump into the workforce and then reevaluate you do not have to panic but for especially households that have multiple children within them there are um it is effectively an option to change the beneficiary on the five two nine plan now once again the beneficiary refers to the future student so if you have multiple kids and maybe one wants to be an electrician and the other one wants to go to law school you can pick up some or all of that balance and move those funds between kids now this does effectively let you change it to other eligible family members but they they do prevent it that it has to be a family member of the original beneficiary they don't let you basically just change it to somebody random walking down the street and covering i'm sorry moho yeah actually um related to that we had a really good question in the chat and hoping you can share more um the question is can i open a five 29 account for a niece or nephew and then a follow-up question to that is what impact would that have on financial aid so you talked about the impact of financial aid for a parent that opens a five 29 account for their child but what about if it's another relative yes of course these are both very good questions um so the first one you can actually use a five two nine plan to save for anyone um as an example i i do it for my best friend and his wife they welcome their their first child so it's something that obviously i want to help them um in any way and i'm obviously passionate about it too so the stars align um but you can really say for anybody but the the child does have to have a social security number or tax ID number that is the only thing um that that might be a preventative piece in some cases but as long as you have that um then you can do that um and now talking about owning five two nine plans um for purposes of financial aid um at the end of the day the predominant form that's used in the united states for financial aid is what's known as the FAFSA um and my reference from before is that the FAFSA largely breaks into questions around four concepts or four types of assets in income that is the parents income the parents assets the child's income and the child assets now in doing so the financial aid system has gone through a lot of changes over the past couple years there was an act that was actually signed called the FAFSA simplification act um in basically you know helping to effectively try to reduce how many questions are asked um which is very helpful but this is also where we've seen kind of an interesting change um to five two nine treatments in doing so if you are an adult outside of that household notably that FAFSA really only cares about the parents and the kids in reporting that assets and income sources so people outside of that household are not somebody that the FAFSA necessarily inquires about um and at the end of the day I will say for parents that are getting close to this enrollment the the biggest piece in terms of words of encouragement that I can I can give to families that I wish they utilized more often is being an advocate for that student when they are enrolling and working with the financial aid office after you've gotten your offer letter as well um that is something that a lot of people ask that question but I would say it is something that more often than not it is worth the time um and in terms of offering and asking questions about how they got to that number and the ways that they might also be able to assist maybe above or below that amount um it is something that I really do encourage people to be advocates in reference to that Chris. James I'd like to add just one thing and I put it in the chat as well oftentimes when I'm meeting with clients I will suggest to the parents that they set up a 529 for their newborn because it's a great way for friends family as you said to be able to contribute so not everybody has to set up an individual 529 oftentimes the parents or grandparents will set something up and then anyone can contribute which is exactly what we did with my nephew. Yes and and so I'm going to be talking scholarship actually uses a mechanism called UGIF which I'll touch on on the back end here I will just say you know I've had some really cool instances with this that I'll talk about but at the end of the day anybody can make those contributions and it's a very popular request instead of necessarily wanting to buy that kid one more additional toy it is something where people want to help they want to feel that they're investing in that kid's education and it's really providing the mechanism to do so has just been a huge win across across the state and across the country for families. Now those investment options in those 529 accounts when that money goes in it is invested and there's a multitude of different options I kind of I'd like to explain this like sitting down at a restaurant and being handed a menu you can order what you want off the menu you can ask for suggestions which we'll talk about as the enrollment year options but there's really a multitude of different investment options with scholarship on the left hand side here there is a guaranteed investment portfolio this is a principally protected I guess the easiest way to explain it is it's kind of like a savings account equivalent in doing so this pays it protects your principal and pays a fixed rate of interest that is locked in January of every year so in the beginning of January this year it was locked at 2.8 percent historically the interest on these accounts has always been at minimum 1 percent and a maximum 3 percent now interest rates have completely kind of ballooned in the past few years that has ultimately led to some questions in reference to that but I will just say if this is something that you're utilizing for that kid keep an eye in January of what the new year's rate is because it is universal for that investment option until you get into that next following year but for more of those market style investments because you sit down at that restaurant and you have the menu you can go through and divide up your contributions to be invested however you want people that are comfortable with getting under the hood of the investment options there's a ton of information on the scholarship websites and during enrollments around these options to explore you know whether it's overall allocations underlying funds or even things like fee and performance data it's all out there and publicly available now by far and large the most popular option is what's known as an enrollment year investment portfolio broadly across the industry these are called target eight funds where there's a year in the name that's supposed to coincide with the year that the child is going to enroll in school so it's a newborn student that's in the 2040 or 2041 enrollment year investment portfolio at this point would have a more aggressive allocation and in doing so through time as that kid gets older and older it becomes more and more conservative the older the kid gets without you necessarily needing to go in and make that change you can always make those changes you are allowed to change your investments within a 529 plan twice per calendar year per kid so it is something that you are at no point basically locked into something you get those two changes to utilize it as you see fit now starting in 2022 scholarship has also incorporated 13 different ESG portfolios for people that do want to chase those socially responsible investment options ESG if you are unfamiliar stands for environmental social and governance which are essentially principles to filter out the types of companies that are invested into this is offered both in the target date style or a flavor of the target date funds called the enrollment year portfolio ESG options and there are standalone ESG options as well if you are looking to build your own using some of these options they exist out there there is no dollar amount minimum for any of the investments so if you do want to mix and match on that I didn't bring that up the last time so I'll talk about in here too as far as who is eligible this was kind of one of the questions that was posed the main terminology on 529 plans in terms of the different roles that people play on them the first two big ones that you see here are account owner this is the adult that's in control of this money that their accounts for the benefits of the future students the beneficiary as the account owner you also do get to designate a successor account owner which is if you as the account owner do pass away this is the next adult that's going to control these funds for your kids and in reference to that other question too we use what's known as a you gift the where every scholarship account has a code to it that you can give that code to friends family members and they're able to contribute online without necessarily getting access to your account it confirms the information about the account the first name of both yourself as the account owner and the beneficiary and then it can accept contributions just straight from a bank account people can actually make one time or recurring contributions in this mechanism so if somebody else wants to do you know $50 a month or something they're absolutely able to do that and their contributions do not impact yours everything gets deposited in the same pot and there are tools online to track who's been gifting what if you utilize this code a lot now as far as account opening I will just say this my phone number is plugged here and my contact information will be at the end if you do have questions I am one of six consultants across the state to Mohan's point we have multiple consultants that are bilingual so if you need support or you feel more comfortable communicating in a different language that is denoted on the website what language is the other consultants speak but the process is very quick once we get to the point where we're on the website and in front of a computer that account opening is basically four steps the first section is your information as the adult in control of the money the second section is the child's information the future student that's where you'll need their social security number or their tax ID number the third step is electing that investment this is where it will kind of put you in one of two buckets where it will say the enrollment year concept or all portfolios which will bring up the full menu to order what you'd like and the fourth and final step is setting up your contributions now there's not necessarily a contract or a required minimum outside of putting a dollar in the account and in doing so you can really set up these contributions however you want and they can change and a moment's notice you can change your monthly recurring contribution or go in and slide some additional funds in if you'd like to my contact info will be at the end there one note here too is that if you have already used a five two nine plan and you want to talk about state programs specifics or differences I'm happy to talk with you about that as well to see ultimately if it does make sense to consolidate that or not it can depend now as we're getting close here I'm going to look at chat in a few moments but I will say for those of you that already have accounts or just looking for some additional resources some details on scholarship and without a doubt one of the most important things that you can do to make success towards that savings goal is to set up some type of recurring contribution now oftentimes you might have the option to contribute via payroll direct deposit through your paycheck but most popularly people are pairing this with a bank accounts and you can go in and make that consistent progress every single month as you see fit there are ways to automatically increase your contribution levels annually if you want that pre-coded and you gift is once again our mechanism to collect contributions from other people I personally helped people blow this up on poster boards for things like baby showers graduation parties or even just things like birthdays and holidays there's a lot of cool usage to this there's not a requirement in terms of people needing to do it but if they want to genuinely invest in that kids education versus just sliding them some pocket money this offers a way to do so and to do so securely you can always check accounts online follow us on social media for recent articles we've done some some quick hit videos on different topics over the past few years and the final resource that I want to touch based on that's on the scholar share website is what's known as the college countdown now for those of you that have kids that are getting close to that first year of enrollment I will just say this I hear this extremely frequently it is a stressful time period there's lots of balls up in the air in the essence of getting that kid ready to start applications to walking and navigating through the financial aid process all the way to finally accepting and having conversations about the offer letters from schools there are resources for all of those checkpoints to try to help you stay organized and there's even a network of parents that also volunteer to answer questions in reference to those resources as well one of the other websites that is that Chris I believe has shared and if not I will say we use from time to time internally is an independent website that we have no tie to which is called saving for college.com lots of information on student loans financial aid and all the way to five to nine plans like scholar share as well now with that I'm in a pause here for questions and try to get myself caught up but for those of you still on the session phone or email is always great to reach me the final link it will take you to an appointment scheduling page where which will let you book an appointment it is tied to my calendar as well as all the other consultants that are across the state that work on behalf of scholar share and especially once again if you're more comfortable communicating in let's say Spanish you will see that denoted on which consultants are bilingual as well but with that kind of shifting focus a little bit for questions anything in particular that we saw as a theme here that I might be able to speak to or we getting close to it to wrapping things up there have been so many resources in the chat I hope that everyone knows that you can do a save chat by hitting the three buttons because there's just been a ton of resources mohan's been posting the library's been posting very good I don't think there's an outstanding question right now mohan maybe you can raise anything if I missed it I do want to say as a certified financial planner you know I love the the pieces that you hit about saving consistently this is how we save for every goal save consistently and broad diversification and that means that those age based plans are fantastic because they are going to glide along with the child's age from a more aggressive stock based investment portfolio to more bonds and cash as the as the child gets ready for college and so you know I just always like to hit simplicity consistent savings broad diversification exactly Chris is completely correct mohan did did you unmute for something yeah actually I have a comment but I see a really good question from Maria in the chat that I think you could speak to James the question is can someone open a 529 account for themselves yes they can so it is popular especially for people that have entered the workforce they know that they want to go back you can set up and start saving for yourself no limitation there whatsoever and then earlier you mentioned that there's been some really cool changes with 529 accounts thanks to some federal legislation can you speak to some of that I know as you mentioned that sometimes parents wonder about what if my child doesn't go to college or you know they may not go to a four-year university and I think there's some really cool things that have come as a result of these policy changes you are correct so what mohan is poking at here is what's known as secure act 2.0 which notably was signed late last year into this year that provided some retirement changes but as well as had a pretty big milestone change in the 529 world as well and effectively what has been approved is a mechanism to convert a child's 529 plan into a Roth IRA for them now at the rule set that at this point has been communicated it does not go live until the 2024 tax year but ultimately for those like single child households where you've been planning for one kid's education and then you just want to make sure that you do have some type of a fail safe or you know a way to pivot if that kid doesn't go to school or use all that money the truth is that this new conversion mechanic is quite intriguing for those types of families and just the rule set at a high level that at this point is not finalized I will say that right out of the gates just to make sure I'm above the board is that the 529 accounts to be eligible for this conversion have to have existed for 15 years you're going to be able to pick up up to the IRA contribution amount take it out of the kid's 529 plan and put it into a Roth IRA for them and you're going to be able to keep doing this until you've had a lifetime conversion amount of up to $35,000 now at this point these rules do not go officially live until the 2024 tax year so there might be changes that do happen before them but ultimately I would imagine this is something that most families are pretty excited about as another basically backdoor to handle those what if scenarios which I think is just quite frankly a huge win for families across the country but within that I'm happy to answer questions on that portion but it is something that I would encourage people to do some research on as well especially if you are one of those single child households awesome I'm going to add there that it is limited to the regular Roth contribution each year so yes read the details there's a lot more there and I think there was another question that was related to that about the conversions for anyone or just those who like what is the timing of this yeah I'll let you go through the details I see David's question here it's not just people that opened after 2024 that 529 account opening date is something that's oftentimes tracked and in doing so the account has to be established for at least 15 years even if this means we get into 2024 and you've had an account for 10 years it's still going to apply what they're more so concerned with is that it has existed for 15 years not just starting 2024 to be clear you're very welcome and James I think another strategy right is if there are funds that are unused you can change the beneficiary correct you are correct so you can change the beneficiary on that 529 plan to another eligible family eligible family member of the original beneficiary there does have to be that family link but it gives you enough portability that the most popular transaction that I kind of poked at was changing it from one sibling to another but it does go a little bit farther you can change it to things like first cousins and there's some mobility to get you around the family tree but ultimately that has existed for quite some time within 529 it's this new retirement conversion I'll call it that has been the recent addition that's kind of stolen all the glory and the fame I guess and James I think it's been some things that at least that treasure ma has announced in the last year or so enabling 529s to also be used for trade vocational programs so it doesn't just have to be a four-year university and then there is an option although maybe it's part of what you're you're also telling us maybe there's some important details to note around using a 529 to pay student debt is there not yes there is so the original Secure Act is where we saw this first get introduced that's where we saw the additional possibilities to use a 529 plan to pay down a student loan for a kid you can actually take up to the lifetime amount of $10,000 out of a 529 plan to pay down the student loan of the beneficiary of that account for a sibling which is helpful if those student loans do already exist this same Secure Act also provided ways for families to use it for the technical schools vocational programs and things like apprenticeships I believe was in here as well and then kind of the final additional inclusion that I'll talk about is that at this point federally you can take up to $10,000 completely tax and federally penalty free from a kid's 529 accounts to pay for private K-12 tuition now this is a special case scenario and almost every state has a special case of some sort our special case in the state of California is this one now if you were to take that $10,000 and pay for let's say private education for a child before their their college age you would be able to take that $10,000 without federal tax or federal penalty but at the state level any earnings in that $10,000 or whatever dollar amount you pulled would be taxable at the state level as income and the state does have a two and a half percent income tax penalty my reference was that almost every state across the country has some example of this sometimes it's apprenticeships sometimes it's private K-12 tuition or something else the truth is is that this is our weird scenario in California I will just say that and so people's accounts really do go the farthest for higher education expenses at this point but private K-12 tuition is notably expensive too I will just say that thanks James for bringing that up the the other thing that I counsel people on is that really investments are for a long-term goal and so you know having a greater than seven or ten-year time horizon is really important if we're going to be doing investing in stocks and bonds and so even if we didn't have this tax penalty for the state of California there's a question as to whether a 529 savings plan is the right place to be saving for K-12 anyway so just just a couple of things to think about it for me I feel like it kind of keeps people in line knowing that this is going to be a long-term goal well exactly it is definitely best designed around the ability to keep that long-term perspective and I will say as Mohan had introduced Cal kids what we can really see is at a state level the indications are number one try to get more families thinking about higher education as early as possible and because the 529s don't have distinct contracts to your contributions trying to get families with young kids starting as soon as possible which from a financial planning perspective it helps you stretch out how long you have to save for and invest for which is very helpful so a lot of those policies and that's partly why we might see that K-12 treatments here in California is really the emphasis is about trying to extend that timeline as much as possible because that tax-free growth in the 529 plan is really the incredible tax benefits for school expenses that way but I hope that that makes sense I'm not seeing any further questions I don't know do you want to close this out Chris or is somebody else going to be more responsible for it but I will just say I'll say this first thank you all very much for jumping on contact information is there if I can help you or if your question I'm sure Mohan's information has been posted in the chat as well for follow-up questions that we might be able to assist anybody with but thank you all for jumping on I do appreciate you I appreciate all of you thank you so much and this has really been a great program I'm just so pleased to be able to work with you James Mohan always with the Office of Financial Empowerment we are really blessed in San Francisco and of course the library who has been just the most gracious partner over the years we've been doing financial planning days for 13 years we had one year off during COVID it's been incredible it's I've seen a lot of these same people in all of the presentations today so you know hats off to all of you who have hung in there you know sort of been trying to drink from the water hose of or the fire hose of information about many things financial you've got some great resources there from the Office of Financial Empowerment the smart money coaching certainly James and all of the scholarship folks who can help you here plus all the resources that we've seen today reach out to the library if you'd like to get any of the resource pages that were put together for any of the sessions thank you for joining and you know just thank you to all for being a part of this