College Tuition? Check!

I wrote the final tuition check for Katie last week. Well, if I am being totally accurate, I authorized our MOST 529 plan to write a check to the college for her last semester tuition. It is another one of those parent moments that marks the passage of time and transitions in our children's lives. In some ways it seems like only last year that we wrote our first check to Columbia College, then packed up all her stuff and delivered her to the dorm in Chicago. Since that time she spent nine months in a wonderful condo-like apartment in the city, five weeks in Prague, two weeks in Seoul and nearly four months in Shanghai. She wraps up her final semester in Los Angeles, with semester being defined as a five week time period of attending classes all day, five days a week. (The school knows that no college student - or their parents - could afford to live in LA for more than five weeks.) When she returns the latter part of February it will be time for her to begin the job hunt. She seems to feel that she will not have any problem getting a job. I admire her confidence and pray that she is right. It is still such a tough market out there right now.

Due to the fact that Katie is graduating in less than three years, we have money left over in the 529 plan. That is a great position to be in, but we don't want to withdraw the money and be penalized. So, what to do with it? Do I hear a PhD calling my name?