529 cost comparisons

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' compares directly sold state 529 plans that are unrestricted to non-residents.

One's home state 529 plan should be investigated carefully first.

The following tables ignore in-state benefits, cost reductions, matching programs, and grants. Some states require an annual maintenance account fee for non-residents, which may be waived if certain conditions are met. There may be state restrictions on rollovers to another 529 plan or limitations on changing the beneficiary or account owner. Check each individual state's plan for further details on the cost of a particular fund or an account.

Only low cost index (or mostly indexed) funds are highlighted. While not exhaustive, these cost comparison tables note index funds, with minimal administrative and provider fees, available to residents of any state. If a range of costs is given in the notes, the given expense ratio is an average of all the underlying funds.

Age-based portfolios
Age-based funds provide balanced fund of fund portfolios with allocations that change over time, lowering stock market allocations as the time to college matriculation shortens. Many plans offer age-based plans labelled Aggressive, Moderate, and Conservative, each with different stock/bond allocations.

Static allocation portfolios
Static allocation funds provide balanced, usually fund of fund, portfolios that maintain a fixed asset allocation policy. These portfolios can hold a bond/stock mixture or can be exclusively devoted to stocks (as an example, a stock portfolio consisting of a Total stock market index fund and a Total international stock market index fund) or bonds (as an example, a bond portfolio consisting of a Total bond market index fund and an inflation-indexed bond fund).