Prepaid-tuition program recovers

Thanks to a record number of new enrollments at the same time the stock market was bottoming out, Washington's prepaid-tuition program saw its assets reach a new high by the end of the fiscal year.

The assets of the Guaranteed Education Tuition (GET) program dropped to 2007 levels this past spring, but GET program director Betty Lochner said Wednesday a record number of people also joined the program then.

A combination of record enrollments and a stock market that is now recovering has helped the program's assets improve as well, with its assets improving 20 percent in the last quarter of fiscal 2009 and the upward trend continuing in July, Lochner said.

"The timing was very good for the program," she said, adding that two-thirds of the money invested in the GET program this past year came in during the last few weeks of the enrollment period.

Program assets dropped from $1.04 billion at the end of June 2008 to $769 million at the end of February 2009. The fund was back up to $1.07 billion by the end of June 2009.

Parents use the program, which began in 1998, to pay their children's tuition in advance by buying units at current prices.

When college tuition goes up, the value of the units goes up as well. The state invests the money to cover the costs of future tuition.

One hundred units equal a year's tuition at the state's most expensive universities; it takes fewer to pay for the regional universities and community colleges.

The next enrollment period for the program is Sept. 15-March 15, although starting this fall, children up to to 12 months old can be enrolled in the program year-round.