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> Tough love: if you are currently making needed payments out of an account invested primarily in volatile assets, you have invested it incorrectly. More likely you left the 529 money in stocks because it's a tax shelter, not because you were actually setting that money aside for tuition.

Not exactly, so I'm not down 9% in my 529. I set target dates and my financial institution has shifted them to more stable assets based on that. I just checked and it's only 19% stocks.

As an aside, using a 529 for a tax shelter wouldn't work very well because of the penalties incurred if it is not used for education. 100% of the funds I have saved here are for tuition purposes -- I started doing this years before we had children.