Gregory W. Powell is executive chairman of the Harold Alfond Foundation.
Eighteen years ago, the Harold Alfond Foundation made an investment of $500 in hundreds of babies born in central Maine. In so doing, we invited their families to invest along with us.
This fall, that long-term investment is paying off as these “Alfond babies,” now young
adults, are stepping onto college campuses and into postsecondary training programs for
the first time.
This milestone moment affirms something we at the Harold Alfond Foundation have long believed: that even a modest investment in a child’s future can fundamentally change their aspirations and trajectory.
Our founder, Harold Alfond, believed that every Maine child deserved an opportunity to
excel in life and that higher education in all its various forms would enhance each child’s
future. And along with it, our state.
Harold knew, what the research now confirms and our federal government has come to realize, that children with higher education savings, no matter how modest, are more likely to enroll in and complete higher education. And that investing early in life was best as it strengthened the aspirations for success in life of parents and their children as the value of their financial investment grew over time.
And so, in 2008, we established the Alfond Scholarship Foundation, and with its terrific help began investing $500 in a college savings account for every child born in a handful of
central Maine communities whose parents opened a NextGen 529 savings account.
Building on the success of that early pilot, we then took the program statewide in 2009. Today, every baby born in Maine automatically receives a $500 Alfond Grant, which is invested on their behalf in the state’s NextGen 529 college savings program.
Since the program’s inception, our $500 grants have been awarded to and invested for more than 184,000 Maine children. Thanks to the stock market, together with our grants and the contributions of Maine families who opened their companion accounts, and matching grants by the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME), total savings for higher education now exceeds $813 million.
For our oldest and first grant recipients who have started college this fall, that $500 grew to nearly $2,500. That’s five times the original grant, funds that they are now using tax-free for higher education expenses whether for a Harvard degree or trade certifications,
apprenticeships or licensing exams.
But $500, even with compound investment returns over time, was never meant to single-
handedly fund higher education. Rather, the Alfond Grant was intended as a spark to build aspirations and confidence as well as to inspire every family to join us and start actively saving for their children’s futures.
Today, a third of Maine families with an Alfond Grant have joined us and taken the critical step of opening their own companion NextGen 529 account where they are investing additional funds for their child’s education. That is where I want to focus our attention here.
If your child has received our $500 grant and you have not yet opened a NextGen 529 account, we encourage you to join us and do so. You do not need to start big. You can open a NextGen account for your child alongside the Foundation’s $500 Alfond Grant without making an initial contribution. And you can invest money into your child’s account when you are ready and in many cases receive generous additional contributions from FAME, our state’s nationally recognized NextGen 529 provider.
In the last autumn of Harold Alfond’s life, I sat with him at his camp as he looked over the lawn and lake where his great grandchildren, now off to school, had played and swam in the summer sun. We imagined how the future of every Maine child might be shaped with a $500 investment for higher education. And how with even the most modest of family contributions and the compounding of investment returns over 18 years, our children and our state would be better for it.
Harold knew he would never meet the young adults, once newborns, who headed off to college this fall. But he loved this state and he said, “Let’s do it.”
So this fall, we are celebrating the first of our Alfond babies, now young adults off to college. We are celebrating with their families, who had the foresight to open a NextGen 529 account for their children.
To those students and their families: congratulations! And to the families whose children
will follow, we hope the Alfond Grant and saving for higher education will be part of your
journey, too. An investment in your children today that opens the door to their greater
opportunity tomorrow.
