Virginia529 Reviews

Better to put money in stock market. If I had known this 15 years ago, my kids' tuition would have been ALL paid for plus more!

You spend all this money for the Virginia 529 plan to find out there s still lots of extra fees at certain universities. I would ve been better off investing this money in a 401K or certain stocks. When you find out there s a $2200+ per year fee for Engineering Majors, and $500+ per year fees for Business Majors, plus things like Library fees, Technology fees, Administration fees, etc. you have regrets. If you plan on majoring in Basket Weaving, then go ahead and put your money in the V529. If you want a major that is more substantial and paves the path to a better career, then put your money in investments.

When I was able to finally get through the customer representative, she was very helpful. I was told when i called on several occasions that the weight time was over an hour. It then asked you to leave a message but the voicemail was full. The customer representative, however, was helpful.

Stay away from their age based portfolios!! Absolutely terrible return and simply a waste. College savings can be aggressive - this is not retirement. I really really wish I had just put money in a stock index. I have three kids and could have spread the timing risk. Honestly, one of my biggest financial regrets. The tax benefit is marginal.

Also customer service is cumbersome and simple account management online is atrocious (password requirements, transferring funds, locking the account).

I have been saving with VA529 for more than seven years now. I opened up an account for my son, and have opened accounts for several of my nephews and nieces. I haven t needed to speak with anyone by phone; all of my interaction has been online. So far, however, I have had no problems with accomplishing my goals. The investment options are somewhat limited, but that s OK. They ve got decent examples of all the major types of funds, ie Index, Targeted, etc.

Agree with others wrt slow customer service and poor response rate. My other beef with this plan is the investment itself. I selected the most aggressive accounts for my kids and they have made only slight gains compared to the kids' parallel accounts in Fidelity. It's easy to compare the two and see how Fido outperforms. The ONLY reason I am using Virginia for some of my investments is that Fido's is a New Hampshire-based account and, as a Virginia resident, I would not get the $4k per kid per year tax advantage that I get with a Virginia-based 529. If your kids are past the age for a tax break, I definitely would not consider the Va529.

Virginia 529 has terrible speed of processing payment, we sent request in early August and called the customer service more than 5 times, they would tell us different stories each time but process the payment, it has been more than 2 moths and we still dont receive the payment. I felt very frustrated with the whole procedure and I will never recommend anyone to invest in this way.

Possibly the worst customer service I ve ever experienced. Getting your funds released to the beneficiary s college practically takes an act of god. Providing all the information it takes to open an account in no way entitles your child prompt access to their funds. Don t bother arguing because when they pick up the phone, after 30 minutes on hold, they agree with themselves completely.

Don't bother calling, by the time they answer the phone your child will have graduated.

I've got accounts for each my kids--one since 2013 and the other since 2016--and I've been pleased with how VA529 has handled my investments. One of the reasons I went with VA529 was to allocate some investments to funds that I wouldn't or couldn't easily tinker with, and I'm happy I did that based on gains I'm seeing nearly every quarter. The first time I used the website I found that the navigation could have been a bit more intuitive, but it's gotten better and I'm used to/fine with it now. Hopefully they can get the state to support another prepaid tuition option in the near future...I missed that boat.