(Radio Iowa) – State Treasurer Roby Smith says it may be time to raise the amount of money that can be deposited in College Savings Iowa accounts each year. “Obviously I have to have the legislature and the governor sign off on that, but that’s something that we’re going to be looking at next session,” Smith says. “We wanted to get in office, do a deep dive January through December and then we’ll introduce a bill that’s going to take some of these recommendations that we have and then we’ll leave it up to the legislature to make that decision.”

Smith was elected state treasurer last November and has been in office nearly six months. His office oversees the College Savings Iowa program which lets individuals make deposits in an account for a future or current student and withdrawals are not taxed at the federal level. If you’re an Iowa resident, withdrawals aren’t subject to the Iowa income tax either. The current limit on yearly contributions is 37-hundred-85 dollars. “It’s always moving because every year it indexes to inflation,” Smith says. “What I want to do is look to take a jump up from that. I don’t have an amount right now, but let’s just say maybe we shoot for $5000 and then start indexing it from there, but college has gone up much that it’s outpaced inflation.”

Lawmakers established College Savings Iowa in 1998 when the average cost for tuition and fees at a public university in the U-S was 32-hundred dollars. It’s now more than nine-thousand dollars a year. State records indicate there are more than 100-thousand College Savings Iowa accounts.