If you have a College Illinois! Saving Plan, read this...

Last edited Thu Aug 9, 2018, 02:25 PM - Edit history (1)

An interesting fact I learned recently just netted me about $9,000!!! I have two College Illinois! savings plans for my kids and was amazed to learn that the approx. $35,000 I had in each account was never depleted and they never informed me that I needed to write them a handwritten letter to request the final balance on the account.

The issue was that my kids didn't use the accounts to attend Illinois schools. They went out-of-state. The plan pays for 8 semesters at an Illinois school or the equivalent quarters, not sure there are any Illinois schools on quarters. When the student attends an out-of-state school, the contract no longer pays for semesters, it pays by the number of credit hours, in other words, it becomes cash rather than semesters. I had a total of 60 credit hours for each kid, most people buy 120 hours, I have a 50% discount. In one case, my oldest son used his 60 hours but the payouts only totaled about $29,000. I figured when they ran out of hours, the money was depleted. Apparently not. The remaining balance will not be paid out because he ran out of "hours" but the balance can be requested by writing a letter to College Illinois! and asking them to send it to you.

If you are in this situation, and your kids went out-of-state or to a private school, log onto your account and look at the total of all the invoices for all semesters/quarters and see if was less than your contract total amount. You might be owed a refund with interest that they never bothered to tell you about.