Add an EDGE to your clients’ education journey
How financial professionals can assist clients to fund the leaders of tomorrow
With the escalating cost of education and the challenges of inflation, financial professionals have a unique opportunity to support clients. As a financial professional, your goal is to assist your clients in saving for their goals and stages of life. Often, your clients’ lives include children, followed by grandchildren, providing you with the opportunity to help your clients with education savings, legacy goals, and estate planning. Scholar’s Edge can provide your clients with smarter choices for education savings.
Why should you work with Scholar’s Edge?
- Deep asset allocation expertise – Principal is the largest provider of active, multi-manager target date funds in the United States.
- Institutional-quality portfolio construction – Our portfolios utilize multi-asset and multi-manager strategies, combining the advantages of active management and the cost savings of passive management. In effect, balancing risk-reward with cost efficiency to help your clients meet their education savings needs.
- Glide path innovation – We’ve built robust and sophisticated glide path technology informed by real data on economics, markets, and student behavior. Our glidepath moves from capital appreciation to capital preservation as the year of enrollment approaches.
- Diverse range of investment options – 11 Year of Enrollment Portfolios, four Target Risk Portfolios, and 15 individual fund options, available in A, C, and R unit classes, to meet your client’s risk and return needs.
- Capital preservation – The Scholar’s Edge Capital Preservation Portfolio offers a guaranteed annual interest rate of at least 1%.
- Low minimum investment requirement, high maximum investment amount and no income-based parameters that would make some earners ineligible.
- Access to knowledgeable teams – At Principal, we have dedicated 529 resources, including portfolio management, product specialists, marketing and sales. Our experts can provide deep insights into the trends that impact 529 plans, and bright ideas for how you can benefit from incorporating 529 plan offerings into your overall business building strategy while serving your clients’ best interests.
- Online functionality and support for clients – We provide resources and tools such as four savings and repayment calculators, a content library, a social media library and employer plan materials.
Interested in comparing the Scholar’s Edge 529 Plan to other advisor-sold plans? Click here to begin comparing now.
Contributions options you can offer clients
Your clients can contribute to a 529 plan in a variety of ways, so they can choose what works best for them.
Estate planning
Work with your clients to make 529 plans part of their estate planning in 2025:
- Up to $19,000 individual per year
- Up to $38,000 filing jointly per year
Lump sum over 5 years:
- Up to $95,000 individual
- Up to $190,000 filing jointly
Payroll direct deposit
Your clients can arrange to add money to their account regularly from their payroll using direct deposit (if allowed by their employer) or contribute directly from their bank account. If you have clients who own a business, they can offer 529 plans as a benefit to their employees using payroll direct deposit.
Contact us
Scholar’s Edge client services:
Monday through Friday
8:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. MT
Scholar’s Edge email:
Client transactions available at:
529 QuickView help desk:
Monday through Friday
8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. ET
Dedicated Principal sales team:
Monday through Friday
9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. ET