2010 plan performance rankings Q4

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 and five-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 December 31, 2010.

We ranked plans that consumers can enroll in directly (see below), as well as those sold through brokers).

One-year performance ranking

Rank	State	Plan	Percentile
1	Louisiana	START Saving Program	23.08
2	Alaska	University of Alaska College Savings Plan	27.95
3	Alaska	T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan	29.55
4	Michigan	Michigan Education Savings Program	30.15
5	Virginia	Virginia Education Savings Trust (VEST)	31.19
6	South Dakota	CollegeAccess 529 (Direct-sold)	31.70
7	Nevada	USAA 529 College Savings Plan	32.81
8	North Carolina	National College Savings Program	33.28
9	West Virginia	SMART529 Select	33.61
10	Utah	Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP) Trust	37.06

See the full list of one-year direct-sold rankings.

Three-year performance ranking

Rank	State	Plan	Percentile
1	Nevada	USAA 529 College Savings Plan	7.27
2	Kansas	Schwab 529 College Savings Plan	21.27
3	Florida	Florida College Investment Plan	26.42
4	Wisconsin	EdVest (Direct-sold)	31.89
5	Michigan	Michigan Education Savings Program	32.60
6	West Virginia	SMART529 Select	34.66
7	Nevada	The Vanguard 529 Savings Plan	35.68
8	Utah	Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP) Trust	35.70
9	South Carolina	Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold)	36.45
10	Maryland	College Savings Plans of Maryland -- College Investment Plan	36.61

See the full list of three-year direct-sold rankings.

Five-year performance ranking

Rank	State	Plan	Percentile
1	Nevada	USAA 529 College Savings Plan	18.17
2	Kansas	Schwab 529 College Savings Plan	26.46
3	Michigan	Michigan Education Savings Program	29.59
4	Louisiana	START Saving Program	29.63
5	Alaska	University of Alaska College Savings Plan	35.60
6	Virginia	Virginia Education Savings Trust (VEST)	35.85
7	Maryland	College Savings Plans of Maryland -- College Investment Plan	36.11
8	South Carolina	Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold)	36.98
9	Alaska	T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan	37.45
10	Wisconsin	EdVest (Direct-sold)	37.48