By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – Alabama's new college savings plan is more popular than the state's older prepaid college tuition plan. State Treasurer Kay Ivey says that's because it allows people to invest smaller amounts and offers more flexibility. She says the treasurer's office had one-thousand-100 people enroll in the Prepaid Affordable College Tuition Plan last year, compared to one-thousand-407 Alabamians who chose the newer Higher Education 529 Fund. Ivey says the PACT program's costs have been going up because Alabama colleges and universities have been raising tuition and mandatory fees an average of 7 percent a year. The board that oversees the PACT Plan hopes to change that by offering a one-year option rather than only selling four years of tuition and mandatory fees at a four-year public university or college in Alabama.