• Registered: 03-27-2009
  • Posts: 116

Topic: The REAL Face of PACT Owners

Have you heard an endearing story from a contract holder on how their PACT contract came to be -- or the struggle that it was -- or the community that pulled together to purchase a PACT in a time of tragedy for a family? Lets put a new face on this program and its owners and lets do this quick!

If you can get me these stories by forwarding them on, posting here, and/or encouraging those with the story to send them to me this would be great! Would love to have them by 10 pm Thursday. We have a great opportunity that has presented itself to share these stories-- but we must have them by Friday.

They can of course submit these after this point, but we would love to have as many as possible by this deadline.

Thank you all for all you do!

Rebecca

rebecca@savealabamapact.com

  • Registered: 06-26-2009
  • Posts: 28

Re: The REAL Face of PACT Owners

Alice's dad, Al Bloodworth, a WW II Navy veteran of the Pacific campaign, passed away seven years ago.  We decided to honor his memory by using the insurance proceeds and the remains of his estate to purchase prepaid college tuition contracts with the State of Alabama for our two boys.  We could have replaced a car, gone on a very nice vacation or even made down payment on a lake house with that money.  But we felt the best way to honor Al would be to use that money to forward finance his grandkids' education.

The $26 thousand dollars we committed to PACT was, we thought, the "safe" alternative to trying to time the market, which was doing very well back then, and a prudent hedge against runaway college tuition inflation.  What caught our attention was the marketing: "lock in tomorrow's tuition at today's rates." 

We think Al would be proud of the decision we made, though we're not sure he would be pleased to see what the State of Alabama has subsequently done with our commitment to our boys' future.   

When you think of the PACT program, you should remember the magnitude of sacrifice made for every one of those tens of thousands of contracts.  Each is a dedication, sacrifice and substantial commitment to a child's future by a parent or grandparent.  The very least the State of Alabama can do, the very least, is honor this commitment in good faith.

We don't know what the solution to the actuarial shortfall is, nor is it our place to "help" our political leadership figure it out.  We only know that political manipulation and power pushes dishonors the commitment we made in Al's name to our children.

  • Registered: 08-26-2009
  • Posts: 1

Re: The REAL Face of PACT Owners

My husband and I bought the pact for our son when he was in kindergarden. We are a may -december marriage and we thought it was a wise move in case something happened and I was left a widow.  Thank goodness that didnt happen and now our son is seventeen and has applied for college to start in 2010.  I remember when we enrolled in pact thinking this is great, a State program to lock in the college costs at todays prices for ours sons college years later. We didn't even know this money was invested in anything other then the State of Alabama.  Our contract has been paid in full for 16 years!!!  If they were to give our money back tomarrow if wouldnt help, we only have one year to save up.
My husband is retired ( also a WWII veteran), I am still working. This has put us in a really bad spot.   And it through no fault of ours.  We were lead to believe this was a state program, to promote state colleges, to lock in tution costs for alabama children.  I feel like we were mislead and duped! The state of Alabamas law did not match what information they sent us on the PACT program.  I hope they make this right, I don't know what we'll do if they don't. We really feel cheated!