2016 plan performance rankings Q1

http://www.savingforcollege.com/articles/2016-plan-performance-rankings-Q1-330

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 "performance score" determines the ranking. For more details, please view our methodology.

Here are our 529 performance rankings as of March 31, 2016.

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 rankings are based on a plan’s average investment returns over the last 12 months, as of the date shown. To see how a plan performed over a longer time period, see the three-year, five-year and 10-year performance rankings (where available).

Rank	State	Plan	Performance score
1	West Virginia	SMART529 WV Direct College Savings Plan	20.06	Plan Details
2	South Carolina	Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold)	20.89	Enroll Now
3	Tennessee	TNStars College Savings 529 Program	24.36	Plan Details
4	Illinois	Bright Start College Savings Program -- Direct-sold Plan	24.55	Plan Details
5	Nebraska	Nebraska Education Savings Trust - Direct College Savings Plan	26.91	Enroll Now
6	New York	New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan	27.61	Enroll Now
7	Michigan	Michigan Education Savings Program	27.84	Plan Details
8	Virginia	Virginia529 inVEST	29.84	Enroll Now
9	Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania 529 Investment Plan	31.04	Enroll Now
10	Missouri	MOST - Missouri's 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold)	31.09	Enroll Now

See the full list of one-year direct-sold rankings | For broker-sold plan rankings and fee-based financial planners

Three-year rankings are based on a plan’s average annual investment returns over the last three years as of the date shown. To see how a plan performed over a longer time period, see the five-year and 10-year rankings (where available).

Rank	State	Plan	Performance score
1	District of Columbia	DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold)	14.41	Plan Details
2	New York	New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan	24.86	Enroll Now
3	Maine	NextGen College Investing Plan -- Client Direct Series	26.94	Plan Details
4	California	The ScholarShare College Savings Plan	27.69	Plan Details
5	Tennessee	TNStars College Savings 529 Program	28.22	Plan Details
6	Florida	Florida 529 Savings Plan	29.63	Enroll Now
7	Alaska	University of Alaska College Savings Plan	31.72	Enroll Now
8	Louisiana	START Saving Program	32.73	Plan Details
9	South Carolina	Future Scholar 529 College Savings Plan (Direct-sold)	33.05	Enroll Now
10	Michigan	Michigan Education Savings Program	33.35	Plan Details

See the full list of three-year direct-sold rankings | For broker-sold plan rankings and fee-based financial planners

Five-year rankings are based on a plan’s average annual investment returns over the last five years as of the date shown. To see how a plan performed over a longer time period, see the 10-year rankings (where available).

Rank	State	Plan	Performance score
1	District of Columbia	DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold)	18.50	Plan Details
2	New York	New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan	25.27	Enroll Now
3	Maine	NextGen College Investing Plan -- Client Direct Series	29.13	Plan Details
4	Illinois	Bright Start College Savings Program -- Direct-sold Plan	29.26	Plan Details
5	Alaska	University of Alaska College Savings Plan	29.41	Enroll Now
6	Michigan	Michigan Education Savings Program	29.79	Plan Details
7	Florida	Florida 529 Savings Plan	31.25	Enroll Now
8	Utah	Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP)	31.42	Enroll Now
9	Alaska	T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan	34.14	Enroll Now
10	Iowa	College Savings Iowa	34.21	Enroll Now

See the full list of five-year direct-sold rankings | For broker-sold plan rankings and fee-based financial planners

10-year rankings are based on a plan’s average annual investment returns over the last five years as of the date shown. To see how a plan performed during a more recent time period, see the one-year, three-year and five-year rankings.

Rank	State	Plan	Performance score
1	Utah	Utah Educational Savings Plan (UESP)	26.37	Enroll Now
2	Louisiana	START Saving Program	27.47	Plan Details
3	New York	New York's 529 College Savings Program -- Direct Plan	31.35	Enroll Now
4	Alaska	University of Alaska College Savings Plan	31.43	Enroll Now
5	Florida	Florida 529 Savings Plan	32.98	Enroll Now
6	District of Columbia	DC 529 College Savings Program (Direct-sold)	34.99	Plan Details
7	Alaska	T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan	37.14	Enroll Now
8	Iowa	College Savings Iowa	37.70	Enroll Now
9	Ohio	Ohio CollegeAdvantage Direct 529 Savings Plan	38.80	Plan Details
10	Virginia	Virginia529 inVEST	40.25	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.