Lawmakers To Create College Savings Plan

SEATTLE (AP) — The Legislature is moving toward starting a traditional 529 college savings plan for Washington state, while reopening the old prepaid program that has been frozen since last year. Both the House and the Senate have approved a bill that would set up the new 529 plan. A concurrence committee is working out the differences between the two versions. The main difference is the House's insistence that the measure spell out that the Guaranteed Education Tuition program is not going away. It sets a July 2017 deadline for reopening the GET program. The sponsors of the bipartisan measure, Senate Bill 6601, do not expect any trouble getting the House version approved by the Senate.