On Sept. 29, the University of Indianapolis joined CollegeWell’s Private College 529 Plan, which provides families the opportunity to start contributing to their future college student’s tuition at the college’s current tuition rate.
“What it’s intended to do is to protect students’ families from rising costs of higher education by buying in at the current price,” UIndy’s Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration Rick Graycarek said.
According to CollegeWell, when a family starts contributing to a fund, the money is saved in a tuition certificate, allowing a certain percentage of tuition to be prepaid even if the college’s tuition increases over the years. If a family pays $10,000 in 2025, and that equates to 25% of their child’s future tuition, when the child actually goes to college in 2035, 25% of their tuition is paid for, regardless of tuition increases.
“It’s just another tool to help students and their families afford college at UIndy,” Graycarek said. “It’s a win-win.”
Graycarek said this plan is available to anyone, even those who started contributing to a tuition certificate before UIndy was a member. He further explained that families can contribute at any time, and contributions can be recurring. CollegeWell says the initial contribution must be at least $25, but contributions can be made annually, quarterly, monthly or with just one lump sum.
President Tanuja Singh said UIndy’s decision to join this plan was largely due to the recent conversations about the increasing cost of higher education.
“If you’ve been watching the news and things, everybody’s talking about the higher cost of higher education,” Singh said. “What this plan does is to allow people to have a degree of risk averseness, but also a level of comfort that they are investing in their students’ education now, and that cost escalation would not be an issue for them as and when their student goes to the university.”
Singh explained this plan has minimal risk for the university and is designed to benefit students. Graycarek confirmed that there are no additional costs to students other than the money they choose to contribute to their tuition certificates. There is also no cost to the university; the plan simply helps families invest early so that they are not as heavily affected by increasing college tuition.
CollegeWell says tuition certificates are tax-deferred and they can be used at any member college as long as they are held for at least 36 months prior. There are no state residency requirements, and if a student with a tuition certificate decides not to go to college, their certificate can be used for another beneficiary or refunded.
Singh said that joining this plan is an investment as UIndy must honor these tuition certificates despite fluctuations in tuition. However, she is confident that this investment will become more valuable over time as it brings in more students.
“They [prospective families] have to make the investment now, but other than making this very systematic investment now, there are really no downsides to it,” Singh said. “Of course, the downside for the university may be if the markets are performing significantly worse than what we expected, but if it’s over time, markets perform. You know, they might not perform well in a year, but over time, the markets perform better. So that’s a minor risk, but we weighed in all the risks as well as the opportunities, and we felt it was worth investing in.”
