My Father Started Our Tradition Of Saving

In 2015, CollegeAdvantage celebrated its 25th anniversary. In honor of this milestone, many longtime account owners shared their Saving Stories and how using CollegeAdvantage helped them achieve their goals. We are fortunate to have these encouraging stories of how families prioritized their children’s higher education and are sharing them again. 

My father, who was active in schools within Ohio, opened the first accounts for our daughters in 1990. He was excited to have a way to save money for his two granddaughters to go to college. The extended family of aunts, uncles, as well as my husband and I, hopped on board with that idea and we all were contributing to the girls' educational future. While the accounts were not long duration, they were extremely helpful as the girls began their college experiences.

Both girls are graduates of Miami University in Oxford (1998, 1999), with degrees in Education and both are successful educators within schools here in Ohio. The bonus of all this was that both graduated with the help and caring of family without one dollar of student loans! The moneys contributed to their funds were "gifts forward" from the generations before them, all wanting them to have the chance to gain a college degree and become a productive citizen in society. The toy or game we might have purchased would have been played with or discarded in months, but the money we sent to CollegeAdvantage just kept on adding up. Both girls were thankful each time they received a card for any holiday with the short message, "we have sent a contribution to your college fund." 

Now our daughters have opened CollegeAdvantage plans for their children. They both had seen the benefit of such a plan for themselves, and they wanted to have that for their own kids. So now my husband and I, the other aunts and uncles and grandparents are building the little kids’ future by those contributions each birthday or holiday. It is amazing to see their accounts grow. So now the four grandchildren are second generation CollegeAdvantage kids who will also have an opportunity to attend collegewithout accruing hefty college loans.

Thanks for giving us this opportunity to share our story, and thank you for maintaining such a positive avenue for parents and families to save of their children's education. If our story helps one more family consider saving for the future of the children and grandchildren in their lives, then that is a good thing. We are thankful to my dad, Great Pa Chet, who started all of us on the path of education for the future. 

Jeanie Roush Wolfe

Kettering, Ohio