529 savings plans
BE A PILOT WITH THE HELP OFTHE 529 EDUCATION SAVINGS PLANS
Are you a parent of a high school student who is interested in becoming a pilot? If so, you will want to take note of recent legislation that could be a game-changer for financing their journey to the airlines. This legislation concerns 529 college savings plans.
Before, the 529 education savings plan could not be used to fund flight training without incurring significant penalties. But the recently signed section in the Congressional Bill H.R. 1 reverses this. Now you can use the funds you’ve saved for college to cover vocational training, like flight school. As a parent, this means that you may now have an entirely new way to fund your student’s flight training.
What is the 529 savings plan?
Simply put, a state or educational institution operates a 529 plan. It exists to make it easier to save for your student’s postsecondary education. This is done through a combination of tax advantages and other incentives, allowing families to put money aside for their kids’ education in an account where the growth is not subject to taxes. You can then use these special accounts to pay for a variety of schooling-related expenses related to schooling, including tuition, fees, materials, and housing.
Historically, parents could use 529 plans for a college education, but they couldn’t apply the funds to vocational training like flight school without incurring penalties. This represented a major impediment to parents who wished to use their hard-earned savings to pay for their high-school graduate’s flight training. With the recent rule change, however, you can easily use funds from 529 plans to do just that.
discover how the 529 savings plans can help in your flight journey
If you are a parent who has been saving diligently for years for your kids’ post-secondary education, you can now fund their flight school journey with the money that has been accumulating in your 529 account. This is a huge boon for parents whose kids would rather become pilots than spend years in college. And there has never been a better time for a high school graduate to begin a flying career than now.
Over the past decade, a long-anticipated pilot shortage in the U.S. has worsened, drastically changing the aviation industry. One of these changes has been the educational requirements for pilots looking to work for the airlines. Before the 2020s, high school graduates needed both a college degree and pilot certifications to become an airline pilot.
Over the past few years, all major U.S. airlines have dropped the requirement that applicants hold university degrees. Now, having the necessary pilot certifications by themselves is sufficient. For the first time, high school graduates can pursue flight training as a direct path to an airline career, rather than in addition to a college degree. At the same time, salaries for airline pilots have only increased. This convergence of events means that there has never been a better time to invest in flight training for your high school graduate. Doing so will set them on a well-respected career path destined to yield them truly impressive earnings over the course of their career.
Enroll your child to a flight school with the 529 savings plans TODAY
If you are a parent with a 529 plan (or a high school student whose parents have been saving for college), you now have an entirely new tool in your toolbox with which to pay for flight training. Don’t wait, because there will never be a better time to begin a career as a professional pilot than the present.
