Unbelievable!

Yet another disappointment at the chosen college: My son’s aunt and uncle established a 529 savings account for him when he was about nine years old. It’s grown nicely since then, and I thought the coming semester would be a good time to take some gains off the table and put the funds to use.

One would think that making a tuition payment to a state college from a 529 account managed by a major investment company would be fairly straight-forward. These accounts have been around for some time now.

Wrong! It was pretty much impossible to speak to anyone in the bursar’s office that was capable of providing the necessary information to make the transfer. Voice mail messages apparently got forwarded to a dark hole, since they were not returned.

The payment eventually got to them (presumably – I suppose I won’t know for sure until I get the next bill and it shows a zero carry-forward balance). It was not easy, it was not pleasant. But my husband believes I should not judge the school by a few incompetent administrators…or by the incompetent tech support desk…or by the less-than-accommodating office for students with disabilities…

The other day I casually mentioned a potential transfer after his sophomore year (and I really have to stop doing that – will I never learn?), my son mentioned that one school he was still interested in was a state university in a neighboring state. It could happen.