529 accounts are tax-advantaged savings plans designed primarily for education expenses, and recent legislation has significantly broadened their uses. As of July 2025 and the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), 529 funds can now be used for a much wider range of educational pursuits and related expenses.

The changes reflect a seismic shift in education as more Gen Zers shun the traditional four-year degree—and resulting student loan debt. Instead, many are picking up trade skills or reaping the benefits of the Creator Economy.

Key features and recent legislative changes (2025):

• Expanded K–12 qualified expenses: 529 accounts were previously limited to K–12 tuition (up to $10,000 per year), but they can now be used for additional expenses such as books, online educational materials, testing fees (e.g., SAT/ACT), dual enrollment fees, tutoring by qualified professionals, and educational therapies for students with disabilities. The annual limit for all K–12 expenses will rise to $20,000 starting January 1, 2026.
• Broader postsecondary and career use: In addition to traditional college and university costs, 529 funds may now pay for adult learners’ and career changers’ credential programs, including professional licenses, certificates (including registered apprenticeships), and continuing education courses in fields such as automotive repair or food safety. Recognized credentials include those covered by federal programs and military career advancement resources.
• 529-to-Roth IRA rollover: Under the SECURE 2.0 Act (effective since 2024), up to $35,000 in unused 529 funds can be rolled over into the beneficiary’s Roth IRA, subject to annual Roth contribution limits and other conditions (such as the 529 account being open for at least 15 years). This allows families to avoid penalties on unused funds if a beneficiary doesn’t need all 529 savings for education.
• Additional changes and flexibility: 529 funds can also be applied to student loan repayments (up to certain limits), pay for K–12 and higher education expenses across public, private, or religious institutions, and support a broader set of personal education and development goals.

Implications:

• 529 accounts now serve not just as college savings plans, but as comprehensive education savings vehicles adaptable to a variety of academic and professional needs. This flexibility recognizes modern realities, such as students pursuing alternative postsecondary training paths and adults shifting careers.
• These updates provide greater clarity and planning assurance for families, especially those saving for children who may take nontraditional education or career routes.

Caveats:

• Rules regarding eligible expenses, contribution and rollover limits, and state-level nuances may still apply, so consulting a tax professional or financial advisor is highly recommended for those planning to leverage these new benefits.
• The expansion’s implementation details (such as some effective dates and regulatory guidance) are still emerging as of July 2025.

In summary, 529 accounts have evolved into versatile, tax-advantaged savings vehicles for many forms of education and career development, with recent Congressional changes making them more broadly applicable and beneficial for American families and individuals.

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is worth $151 billion—and he’s bringing his team along to the billionaires club with him. The AI boss said that he’s minted more billionaires on his management team than “any CEO in the world.” The culture at Nvidia is intense, but by shelling out for staffers, Huang reasons: “You take care of people, everything else takes care of itself.”

Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang has amassed a $151 billion net worth thanks to the success of his $4 trillion semiconductor company. And the ninth richest person in the world says he’s bringing his team into the exclusive billionaire club thanks to Nvidia’s envy-inducing compensation packages. 

“I’ve created more billionaires on my management team than any CEO in the world,” Huang said recently during a panel hosted by venture capitalists running the All-In podcast. “They’re doing just fine.”

Tech leaders at Meta, OpenAI, and Google are now also shelling out to attract top AI experts—with Meta even attempting to poach OpenAI employees with $100 million signing bonuses, according to leader Sam Altman. With the AI race being so hot, chief executives are reaping billion-dollar net worth gains from their company’s rising stock valuation, begging the question of whether their staffers are getting in on the pot of gold too. But Huang asserts that his employees are well-rewarded for Nvidia’s success.

“Don’t feel sad for anybody at my layer,” Huang said. “My layer is doing just fine.”

In fact, Huang noted that he personally reviews all employee compensation to ensure staffers’ wallets are stuffed. While he said the rumor that he has a stash of stock options on deck “is nuts,” he does confirm that he bumps wages every year to keep Nvidia workers happy. 

“I review everybody’s compensation up to this day,” Huang said. “I sort through all 42,000 employees, and 100% of the time I increase the company’s spend on [operating expenses]. And the reason for that is because you take care of people, everything else takes care of itself.”

Fortune reached out to Huang for comment. 

Huang’s loves a small, well-paid team of AI geniuses—and ‘tortures’ them into greatness

Nvidia employs tens of thousands of people—but having a small, nimble, well-funded AI team may be the ticket to the top. Huang emphasized that DeepSeek and Moonshot AI both have relatively slim AI crews, yet have capitulated to great business success. 

“150 or so AI researchers can probably, with enough funding behind them, create an OpenAI,” Huang said during the panel. “OpenAI was about 150 people, [as well as] Deepmind. They’re all about that size. There’s something about the elegance of small teams.”

Once talent manages to get onto the lean-and-mean AI team at Nvidia, they have to reckon with Huang’s cutthroat culture. Current and former staffers have described an “always-on” expectation, with one ex-employee saying she attended seven to 10 meetings every day, where fighting and shouting was common. The CEO’s grindset has clearly bled into the way staffers approach their work, and Huang’s leadership strategy entails pushing workers to the brink. But he isn’t willing to give up and fire people if they can’t do the job at hand, because he always thinks “they could improve.” 

“I’d rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you,” Huang said during a fireside chat with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison last year. While the CEO said he was being “tongue-in-cheek,” he doubled down: “I think coaches that really believe in their team torture them into greatness.”

And there’s an upside for working long hours and sitting through tense meetings—Nvidia employees get special compensation perks. The tech company allows employees to contribute up to 15% of their salaries to buy up company shares at a 15% discount. One mid-level employee even reportedly bought in for 18 years, and retired with shares worth $62 million. It’s a deal that’s so lucrative that it’s become “golden handcuffs” for many staffers who can’t bear the thought of losing the perk. In 2023, Nvidia had a 2.7% turnover rate, compared to 17.7% in the semiconductor industry at large. 

As Huang said in an interview with 60 Minutes last year: “If you want to do extraordinary things, it shouldn’t be easy.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• My parents sold their home of 40 years and retired to Barranquilla, Colombia.
• They enjoyed 15 years there, but a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease changed everything.
• Now they're back in in Houston, and I'm navigating their care and finances.

When my parents retired at 70, they both knew immediately where they wanted to go.

With its year-round temperatures of 80 to 90 degrees, peaceful blue waters and a welcoming and lively culture the seaside city of Barranquilla, Colombia, called to them. After all, my Colombian father would be going back to his homeland, and my Cuban mother relished in the Latin culture that seemed so fragmented in the U.S.

They sold their home of more than 40 years in Houston and purchased a two-story condo with a partial ocean view for $135,000 USD. Their social security and retirement money went a long way in Barranquilla, where the average cost of living is much lower than it is in the US.

The move was great, until it wasn't

In the beginning, their retirement life was idyllic. They enjoyed afternoon coffee with friends at sidewalk cafes, they walked along the beach every morning and they would attend parties in their condo development with fellow retirees.

But one day, while they were visiting my family in Texas, my mother stopped and stared at my younger son splashing away in the pool. "Who's that little boy?" she asked. I stared at her face, as she scrutinized my son, with his dark curls and almond brown eyes that looked like mine. "Ma, that's your grandson," I said.

That's when I knew something was terribly wrong. On another visit, my father would wander in the kitchen aimlessly, looking for the cabinet where we kept our water glasses, despite the fact that he had no problem finding them a year ago.

A trip to the neurologist confirmed what I had already suspected. They both had Alzheimer's disease.

We needed to make a plan

While the diagnosis for both of them was still early-stage, I knew what the future held. My grandmother (my mother's mother) and my mother's brother both had Alzheimer's. Worst yet, my father seemed to be progressing at an alarmingly rapid rate. Unfortunately, retiring on the Colombian coast would be a dream unfulfilled.

They decided to move back to Houston to be closer to family and their doctors. They agreed to sell their condo and move in with us temporarily until we could find a suitable assisted living apartment. But it's been tricky. Some days, they would say they were moving back to Barranquilla permanently. It was a constant flip-flop, but my husband and I made an executive decision to keep them in Houston.

They've been living with us since February. In that time, I've had to reset all their passwords because they couldn't remember them. I spend every morning scrambling to the kitchen to make sure I'm there to give them their medication, a routine they consistently forget.

The biggest challenge, though, has been navigating foreign laws. One thing I did early on was get a power of attorney and medical power of attorney. While those two documents have been incredibly helpful in the states, I'm not entirely sure the legal weight these documents may carry in Colombia. I'm currently looking for a lawyer and a real estate agent abroad who can help me with the sale of their condo. Once that's taken care of, I then have to sell all the stuff they've amassed in the 15 years they've lived there.

I'm planning for my own future, too

Perhaps the biggest lesson I've learned in all of this is to be prepared. I plan to sign up for long-term care insurance so my children won't have to stress over how they plan to pay for my care in the same way I have had to with my parents. I've been taking steps to improve my health and I'm also financially prepared for the inevitable — when my parents pass away. Right now, though, I'm going to relish the time I still have with them, here, close to my family.

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• The Great Recession of 2008 hit hard, but you wouldn't know it from the way I was spending.
• I had a job that paid well, so I ignored economic warning signs and overspent in the coming years.
• My mistakes led to years of financial strain that impacted my family and my wellbeing.

Imagine raising five young children, watching the economy collapse into itself, and not changing your spending habits. I don't have to, because it happened to me during the Great Recession of 2008.

I have to say, I don't recommend it. My naivete led to my financial downfall, a divorce, losing touch with my family, and even becoming homeless for a time.

As many of us are now on the edge of our seats wondering what's next for our current economy, I'm planning to be a bit more cautious this time around. I've learned a lot of hard lessons since the last recession, and I won't be making the same mistakes again.

Life seemed good

I felt economically stable in the late-2000s. I had a good salary as a technical writer at Citigroup. My wife and I owned a four-bedroom house, two cars, and had some discretionary money. Our life was comfortable.

I wasn't anxious about the 2007 subprime mortgage implosion. After all, I had a 30-year fixed-rate loan.

I wasn't concerned about the stock market crash of September 2008. In my mind, that was karma hitting back at the never-ending greed of American businesses.

I didn't worry about Citigroup — a multi-national company with billions in assets. Surely, the nearly two-century-old bank was too big to fail.

Then they weren't.

I pretended everything was fine

I obsessively watched Citigroup's stock losemuch of its value. For the briefest of moments in November 2008, it fell below a dollar a share before rallying.

When this happened, I momentarily envisioned a worst-case scenario: Citigroup might rapidly collapse under its financial weight, taking its thousands of employees with it — including me.

I didn't physically reveal my discomfort at the time. Instead, I moved forward like the economic world wasn't on fire. I put on an impassive face and assured my family that nothing was wrong.

My wife and I didn't have late-night chats on proper budgeting. We didn't talk to the kids about tightening our belts. I didn't speak to a financial advisor or shop around for lower car insurance costs. In retrospect, I should have done everything I could to secure my family's financial future.

Instead, I spent thousands of dollars on a family vacation to Disney World. We refinished our deck, purchased new kitchen flooring, and updated appliances. In 2009, we welcomed our fifth child, adding more expenses.

We purchased some of these items with cash (new baby excluded), but a large percentage was purchased with credit, eventually resulting in thousands of dollars of debt.

Still, it seemed like calm seas for the S.S. Keller. However, I wasn't steering a double-hulled cruise ship. I was rowing a dinghy against the current as a waterfall of denial loomed in front of me.

Now I know better

This life of lying to myself and my family hurt everyone in the end. In my mind, it was okay to tap into the savings and use credit for expenses beyond the budget. I had a steady, well-paying job at a large corporation.

Yet, I repeatedly overextended my finances when I should have been reeling in my family's financial habits. Compounding this was undiagnosed bipolar disorder. This contributed to impulsive spending and magical thinking about unrealistic financial assessments, but not all could be blamed on this eventual diagnosis.

The mistakes I made during this time led to my eventual divorce and a stretch of time that I spent homeless. The transition from a four-bedroom house to a minivan was a devastating blow.

Further, each time I review my credit report I cringe at the history of my financial missteps.

I didn't learn how to be financially responsible until after my bipolar diagnosis in 2020. Before that, I spent money as soon as it was earned. I lied to my family and endangered their financial stability. It has taken years to heal the wounds.

I now know that honesty and open communication with your family, even about difficult topics like finances, are essential for navigating uncertainty. While you don't have to prepare for the worst-case scenario, you must have the necessary monetary tools to withstand economic turbulence. This includes an emergency fund, budget, and debt reduction plan. I know this now, and I will be keeping it in mind in the coming months.

Today, I live in Northern Colorado and work hard to maintain a solid financial foundation. Although I recently lost my job, I don't give up and do the minimum to find a new position like I used to. I put in 100%, even when my neurodivergence wants me to do otherwise.

It's a precarious balancing act, especially for someone in their mid-50s. Nevertheless, I'm determined to live a life of abundance instead of scarcity.