Investments for Education, Tailored to You.
We know every student deserves a tailored approach when saving for college. CollegeCounts offers a wide variety of investment options to help achieve your savings goals. Working with your financial professional, you can select from Age-Based, Target or Individual Fund Portfolios to customize an investment strategy that is right for you.
Three Paths Offer Flexibility for your Family's Goals
Work with your investment professional to learn more about the investment portfolios and select the strategy that’s right for you: age-based, target, or individual fund portfolios. And don’t worry if you change your mind. The IRS allows the flexibility for an account owner to change the investment portfolio twice per calendar year or upon a change of beneficiary.
Age-Based Portfolios
Overview: The professionally designed age-based portfolios focus your investment strategy on the current age of the beneficiary. The objective is to create growth potential in the early years and reduce fluctuations in the account as college approaches. You choose the option (aggressive, moderate, or conservative) that matches your investing style.
Investor Profile: College savers who are looking for an investment portfolio that automatically adjusts over time as the beneficiary gets closer to college age.
Target Portfolios
Overview: These six diversified investment portfolios, ranging from aggressive to conservative, provide a set asset allocation of equity (stock), fixed income (bond), real asset (real estate and commodities), and money market investments. The portfolio you select will be rebalanced on an ongoing basis to maintain the targeted asset allocation regardless of the age of the beneficiary.
Investor Profile: College savers who want a mix of stocks, bonds, real assets, and/or money market investments that keeps the same asset allocation over time.
Individual Fund Portfolios
Overview: The 24 individual fund portfolios representing multiple asset classes can be more volatile than the broadly diversified age-based portfolios or the target portfolios, but they allow you the freedom to tailor your choices to meet specific education investment goals. You select a combination of individual funds that range from lower risk/lower return to higher risk/higher return investment options.
Investor Profile: College savers looking to customize their investment strategy utilizing various investment classes.
Quality Fund Families
CollegeCounts Advisor offers funds featuring these quality fund families, and more.
Risk Considerations
A Word About Risk: Keep in mind that you can lose money by investing in a portfolio. Each of the Age-Based, Target, and Individual Fund Portfolios involves investment risks, which are described in the Program Disclosure Statement and should be considered before investing. For example, international investing, especially in emerging markets, has additional risks such as currency fluctuation, economic and political risks, and market volatility. Investing in small, medium, and international companies may increase the risk of fluctuations in the value of your investment and involves greater risks than investing in more established companies. Portfolios that invest in specific industries or sectors, such as real estate, have industry concentration risk. As an example, the portfolios that invest in real estate may perform poorly during a downturn in the real estate industry.
Portfolios that invest in bonds are subject to risks such as interest rate risk, credit risk, and inflation risk. In particular, as interest rates rise, the prices of bonds will generally fall, which can impact performance. It is important to note that the value of your account will fluctuate with market conditions. When you withdraw funds, you may have more or less than your actual investment. For more information on the portfolios and the underlying funds in which they invest, see the Program Disclosure Statement.