Cantor to step down from 529 program

Diana Cantor, a leading figure in the 529 college savings plan industry, will be leaving her post as founding executive director of the Virginia College Savings Plan, the country's largest 529 program with $25.6 billion in assets. Ms. Cantor, who helped create the Richmond-based 529 program for the state 11 years ago, also served as chair of the Lexington, Ky.-based College Savings Plans Network from 2001 through 2004. An attorney and certified public accountant who has previously worked for Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York, Ms. Canton will be joining New York Private Bank & Trust, an investment bank and wealth management firm headed by New York-based realtor Howard Milstein. She said she would step down from her position in Virginia as soon as the agency's Board finds a successor. The search committee will begin reviewing candidates in several weeks, Ms. Cantor said. Ms. Cantor was considered instrumental in laying the groundwork to secure one of the 529 industry's signal achievements, last year's passage of the Pension Protection Act, which made federal tax breaks for 529 plans permanent. "It wouldn't have happened without her," said Jackie Williams, executive director of the Ohio Tuition Trust Authority and current CSPN chair. "Diana has made enormous contributions to the 529 industry. She's been a tremendous asset and will really be missed." The biggest challenge for the 529 industry in the future, Ms. Cantor said, would be dictated by the rapidly rising cost of higher education. "Programs will need to make sure they educate families to start saving earlier and more often than in the past," she said.