Gift cards for college education now available

The next gift card you receive might be redeemable for a college education. California Treasurer John Chiang announced Tuesday that California is the first state in the nation to offer gift cards to help students pay for college.

The gift cards allow families and friends to contribute to college savings accounts linked to the state’s Scholarshare 529 plan. The cards can be redeemed at Scholarshare.com/redeem or GiftofCollege.com, where funds are transferred directly into the recipients’ college savings plans.

The gift cards are available at Toys R Us and Babies R Us retail locations or online at www.scholarshare.com.

“Thanks to our Toys R Us partnership, California families now have an easy and convenient way to build a college nest egg and a realistic path to helping their children earn a college degree without saddling them with crippling debt,” Chiang said.

The ScholarShare 529 college savings plan is named for the section of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code under which they were created. There are no federal or state taxes on account investment earnings if the money is used to pay for qualified higher education expenses.

According to the Treasurer’s office, gift cards are used by nearly 93 percent of American consumers.