2015 Plan Performance Rankings Q3

Each quarter Savingforcollege.com analyzes the investment performance figures for thousands of 529 portfolios and ranks the 529 savings plans from best to worst for one-year investment performance, three-year investment performance, five-year investment performance and ten-year investment performance. The top-performing 529 plans In producing our rankings, we compared the reported investment performance of a subset of portfolios from each 529 savings plan. The lower the "percentile," the better the ranking. For more details, please view our methodology. Here are our 529 performance rankings as of September 30, 2015. We ranked plans that consumers can enroll in directly (see below), as well as those sold through brokers and fee-based financial planners). One-year performance ranking Rank State Plan Performance score 1 District of Columbia DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold) 16.49 Enroll Now 2 South Carolina Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold) 24.07 Plan Details 3 New York New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan 24.35 4 Michigan Michigan Education Savings Program 25.33 Plan Details 5 Maine NextGen College Investing Plan -- Client Direct Series 27.19 Enroll Now 6 California The ScholarShare College Savings Plan 29.24 Plan Details 7 Nevada SSGA Upromise 529 Plan 30.80 Plan Details 8 Tennessee TNStars College Savings 529 Program 31.39 Plan Details 9 Illinois Bright Start College Savings Program -- Direct-sold Plan 31.86 Enroll Now 10 Oklahoma Oklahoma College Savings Plan 32.36 Plan Details See the full list of one-year direct-sold rankings. Click "Next Page" below to see 3 year rankings. Each quarter Savingforcollege.com analyzes the investment performance figures for thousands of 529 portfolios and ranks the 529 savings plans from best to worst for one-year investment performance, three-year investment performance, five-year investment performance and ten-year investment performance. The top-performing 529 plans In producing our rankings, we compared the reported investment performance of a subset of portfolios from each 529 savings plan. The lower the "percentile," the better the ranking. For more details on our methodology. Here are our 529 performance rankings as of September 30, 2015. We ranked plans that consumers can enroll in directly (see below), as well as those sold through brokers and fee-based financial planners). Three-year performance ranking Rank State Plan Percentile 1 District of Columbia DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold) 13.28 Enroll Now 2 California The ScholarShare College Savings Plan 24.40 Plan Details 3 New York New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan 26.17 4 Maine NextGen College Investing Plan -- Client Direct Series 26.57 Enroll Now 5 Utah Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP) 32.26 Plan Details 6 New Jersey NJBEST 529 College Savings Plan 32.68 7 Florida Florida 529 Savings Plan 34.07 Plan Details 8 Tennessee TNStars College Savings 529 Program 34.12 Plan Details 9 West Virginia SMART529 WV Direct College Savings Plan 34.35 Plan Details 10 South Carolina Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold) 35.62 Plan Details See the full list of three-year direct-sold rankings. Click "Next Page" below to see 5 year rankings. Each quarter Savingforcollege.com analyzes the investment performance figures for thousands of 529 portfolios and ranks the 529 savings plans from best to worst for one-year investment performance, three-year investment performance, five-year investment performance and ten-year investment performance. The top-performing 529 plans In producing our rankings, we compared the reported investment performance of a subset of portfolios from each 529 savings plan. The lower the "percentile," the better the ranking. For more details on our methodology. Here are our 529 performance rankings as of September 30, 2015. We ranked plans that consumers can enroll in directly (see below), as well as those sold through brokers and fee-based financial planners). Five-year performance ranking Rank State Plan Percentile 1 District of Columbia DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold) 20.24 Enroll Now 2 New York New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan 26.17 3 Maine NextGen College Investing Plan -- Client Direct Series 28.41 Enroll Now 4 Alaska University of Alaska College Savings Plan 28.62 5 Alaska T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan 33.08 6 Florida Florida 529 Savings Plan 33.20 Plan Details 7 Utah Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP) 33.45 Plan Details 8 South Carolina Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold) 33.95 Plan Details 9 Michigan Michigan Education Savings Program 36.37 Plan Details 10 Illinois Bright Start College Savings Program -- Direct-sold Plan 36.56 Enroll Now See the full list of five-year direct-sold rankings. Click "Next Page" below to see 10 year rankings. Each quarter Savingforcollege.com analyzes the investment performance figures for thousands of 529 portfolios and ranks the 529 savings plans from best to worst for one-year investment performance, three-year investment performance, five-year investment performance and ten-year investment performance. The top-performing 529 plans In producing our rankings, we compared the reported investment performance of a subset of portfolios from each 529 savings plan. The lower the "percentile," the better the ranking. For more details on our methodology. Here are our 529 performance rankings as of September 30, 2015. We ranked plans that consumers can enroll in directly (see below), as well as those sold through brokers and fee-based financial planners). Ten-year performance ranking Rank State Plan Percentile 1 Utah Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP) 24.81 Plan Details 2 Louisiana START Saving Program 30.00 Plan Details 3 New York New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan 33.24 4 Alaska University of Alaska College Savings Plan 34.46 5 Florida Florida 529 Savings Plan 36.20 Plan Details 6 District of Columbia DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold) 36.92 Enroll Now 7 Alaska T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan 39.38 8 Ohio Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Savings Plan 40.52 Enroll Now 9 South Carolina Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold) 40.65 Plan Details 10 Virginia Virginia529 inVEST 41.16 Enroll Now See the full list of ten-year direct-sold rankings. For broker-sold plan rankings and fee-based financial planners. How to rank 529 plan performance Ranking over 3,000 investment options is no easy task, considering the wide variety of options found in 529 savings plans, and it requires a special methodology. Step one: We select specific portfolios from each 529 plan that can be compared on an apples-to-apples basis to portfolios in other 529 plans, based on their allocation among stocks, bonds and short-term instruments (money market and guaranteed investments). We've set up seven different asset-allocation categories ranging from 100 percent equity to 100 percent short-term. Step two: Within each of the seven categories, we compare historical performance of the selected portfolios and assign each plan a percentile ranking between one (best) and 100 (worst). Separate rankings are developed for one-year, three-year, five-year and ten-year performances. Step three: We take the average of each 529 plan's percentile rankings in the seven asset-allocation categories to produce a combined or "composite" percentile ranking. We then produce reports showing how the 529 plans rank against each other in their composite percentile rankings. Note: We currently produce these composite rankings for one-year, three-year, five-year and ten-year performances. For a more in-depth explanation of our methodology, please read our white paper. See the one-year direct-sold, three-year direct-sold, five-year direct-sold and ten-year direct-sold rankings. More information Links to our full report on the composite rankings for this quarter are provided below for the direct-sold 529 plans. Only our Premium subscribers have access to composite rankings for advisor-sold 529 plans, to the underlying data supporting the rankings and to separate one-year, three-year, five-year and ten-year rankings for each of the seven different asset-allocation categories. In addition, subscribers can easily look up the historical performance for every 529 portfolio in every available share class by using our Fee and Performance Lookup Tool. Each quarter Savingforcollege.com analyzes the investment performance figures for thousands of 529 portfolios and ranks the 529 savings plans from best to worst for one-year investment performance, three-year investment performance, five-year investment performance and ten-year investment performance. The top-performing 529 plans In producing our rankings, we compared the reported investment performance of a subset of portfolios from each 529 savings plan. The lower the "percentile," the better the ranking. For more details, please view our methodology. Here are our 529 performance rankings as of September 30, 2015. We ranked plans that consumers can enroll in directly (see below), as well as those sold through brokers and fee-based financial planners). One-year performance ranking Rank State Plan Performance score 1 District of Columbia DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold) 16.49 Enroll Now 2 South Carolina Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold) 24.07 Plan Details 3 New York New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan 24.35 4 Michigan Michigan Education Savings Program 25.33 Plan Details 5 Maine NextGen College Investing Plan -- Client Direct Series 27.19 Enroll Now 6 California The ScholarShare College Savings Plan 29.24 Plan Details 7 Nevada SSGA Upromise 529 Plan 30.80 Plan Details 8 Tennessee TNStars College Savings 529 Program 31.39 Plan Details 9 Illinois Bright Start College Savings Program -- Direct-sold Plan 31.86 Enroll Now 10 Oklahoma Oklahoma College Savings Plan 32.36 Plan Details See the full list of one-year direct-sold rankings. Click "Next Page" below to see 3 year rankings. Each quarter Savingforcollege.com analyzes the investment performance figures for thousands of 529 portfolios and ranks the 529 savings plans from best to worst for one-year investment performance, three-year investment performance, five-year investment performance and ten-year investment performance. The top-performing 529 plans In producing our rankings, we compared the reported investment performance of a subset of portfolios from each 529 savings plan. The lower the "percentile," the better the ranking. For more details on our methodology. Here are our 529 performance rankings as of September 30, 2015. We ranked plans that consumers can enroll in directly (see below), as well as those sold through brokers and fee-based financial planners). Three-year performance ranking Rank State Plan Percentile 1 District of Columbia DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold) 13.28 Enroll Now 2 California The ScholarShare College Savings Plan 24.40 Plan Details 3 New York New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan 26.17 4 Maine NextGen College Investing Plan -- Client Direct Series 26.57 Enroll Now 5 Utah Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP) 32.26 Plan Details 6 New Jersey NJBEST 529 College Savings Plan 32.68 7 Florida Florida 529 Savings Plan 34.07 Plan Details 8 Tennessee TNStars College Savings 529 Program 34.12 Plan Details 9 West Virginia SMART529 WV Direct College Savings Plan 34.35 Plan Details 10 South Carolina Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold) 35.62 Plan Details See the full list of three-year direct-sold rankings. Click "Next Page" below to see 5 year rankings. Each quarter Savingforcollege.com analyzes the investment performance figures for thousands of 529 portfolios and ranks the 529 savings plans from best to worst for one-year investment performance, three-year investment performance, five-year investment performance and ten-year investment performance. The top-performing 529 plans In producing our rankings, we compared the reported investment performance of a subset of portfolios from each 529 savings plan. The lower the "percentile," the better the ranking. For more details on our methodology. Here are our 529 performance rankings as of September 30, 2015. We ranked plans that consumers can enroll in directly (see below), as well as those sold through brokers and fee-based financial planners). Five-year performance ranking Rank State Plan Percentile 1 District of Columbia DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold) 20.24 Enroll Now 2 New York New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan 26.17 3 Maine NextGen College Investing Plan -- Client Direct Series 28.41 Enroll Now 4 Alaska University of Alaska College Savings Plan 28.62 5 Alaska T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan 33.08 6 Florida Florida 529 Savings Plan 33.20 Plan Details 7 Utah Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP) 33.45 Plan Details 8 South Carolina Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold) 33.95 Plan Details 9 Michigan Michigan Education Savings Program 36.37 Plan Details 10 Illinois Bright Start College Savings Program -- Direct-sold Plan 36.56 Enroll Now See the full list of five-year direct-sold rankings. Click "Next Page" below to see 10 year rankings. Each quarter Savingforcollege.com analyzes the investment performance figures for thousands of 529 portfolios and ranks the 529 savings plans from best to worst for one-year investment performance, three-year investment performance, five-year investment performance and ten-year investment performance. The top-performing 529 plans In producing our rankings, we compared the reported investment performance of a subset of portfolios from each 529 savings plan. The lower the "percentile," the better the ranking. For more details on our methodology. Here are our 529 performance rankings as of September 30, 2015. We ranked plans that consumers can enroll in directly (see below), as well as those sold through brokers and fee-based financial planners). Ten-year performance ranking Rank State Plan Percentile 1 Utah Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP) 24.81 Plan Details 2 Louisiana START Saving Program 30.00 Plan Details 3 New York New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan 33.24 4 Alaska University of Alaska College Savings Plan 34.46 5 Florida Florida 529 Savings Plan 36.20 Plan Details 6 District of Columbia DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold) 36.92 Enroll Now 7 Alaska T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan 39.38 8 Ohio Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Savings Plan 40.52 Enroll Now 9 South Carolina Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold) 40.65 Plan Details 10 Virginia Virginia529 inVEST 41.16 Enroll Now See the full list of ten-year direct-sold rankings. For broker-sold plan rankings and fee-based financial planners. How to rank 529 plan performance Ranking over 3,000 investment options is no easy task, considering the wide variety of options found in 529 savings plans, and it requires a special methodology. Step one: We select specific portfolios from each 529 plan that can be compared on an apples-to-apples basis to portfolios in other 529 plans, based on their allocation among stocks, bonds and short-term instruments (money market and guaranteed investments). We've set up seven different asset-allocation categories ranging from 100 percent equity to 100 percent short-term. Step two: Within each of the seven categories, we compare historical performance of the selected portfolios and assign each plan a percentile ranking between one (best) and 100 (worst). Separate rankings are developed for one-year, three-year, five-year and ten-year performances. Step three: We take the average of each 529 plan's percentile rankings in the seven asset-allocation categories to produce a combined or "composite" percentile ranking. We then produce reports showing how the 529 plans rank against each other in their composite percentile rankings. Note: We currently produce these composite rankings for one-year, three-year, five-year and ten-year performances. For a more in-depth explanation of our methodology, please read our white paper. See the one-year direct-sold, three-year direct-sold, five-year direct-sold and ten-year direct-sold rankings. More information Links to our full report on the composite rankings for this quarter are provided below for the direct-sold 529 plans. Only our Premium subscribers have access to composite rankings for advisor-sold 529 plans, to the underlying data supporting the rankings and to separate one-year, three-year, five-year and ten-year rankings for each of the seven different asset-allocation categories. In addition, subscribers can easily look up the historical performance for every 529 portfolio in every available share class by using our Fee and Performance Lookup Tool.