529 and College Savings Plan Compare Workbook

In response to some feedback I got in this topic, I'm providing this basic workbook I built back in February to compare all 92 available 529 plans and college savings plans.

529 & College Saving Plan Compare Workbook

This link will open a Google Sheets document as an .xlsx file that you can download. From there you can play with it however you want.

About the workbook:

All of this data is publicly available, but seeing it all in one place was hard. This data was collected by *manually* running compares of the different plans on savingforcollege.com, copying the data into Excel, and then transposing it all line by line. (I used "SFC" in certain column headers to indicate that it came from that website.) Additional sources were used for some of those columns but they escape me at the moment.

Caveats:

The compares are very text-heavy, owing to some of the nuance involved in these plans (you know how finance goes). So don't expect easy filters or pivots. (I use the term "data" very loosely in this post.) That said, there are some places that could benefit from some cleanup.

The data is all from February 2023. Some of it may have changed. Also my memory of building the workbook and then actually doing the compares is foggy so I'm probably not going to remember every decision point.

This workbook does NOT include prepaid tuition plans.

Some of my own decision making influences a few columns in the workbook. In particular I think I made a few columns specifically for direct-enrollment plans. This is because early on I knew I would be going that route instead of with an advisor plan.

I am not a heavy investor and don't claim to be an expert on any of this shite. I happen to be quite good with data though.

Tips for decision making:

The first question you need to answer is "Does my state have a personal income tax?"

Most states with an income tax provide a tax deduction benefit for contributions to an in-state plan. If you reside in such a state, that is a massive boon when opening a 529. You can still contribute to a plan out-of-state if you choose, but you'd better have a good reason for ditching that tax deduction.

States with no income tax consequently have no such benefit for you to lose, so you do not need to weigh your own state's plans any heavier than other states. You're free to look around the entire country. (This was my case, as I live in TX.)

Next you should try to make a blanket decision on whether to go with direct enrollment plans or advisor plans. In my situation it didn't make any sense to do an advisor plan, so I was able to quickly scratch off around half of the list just based on that. But it might make sense to you. I believe one of the columns in that workbook has a simple AS/DS value that you can filter to kick out the ones you don't want.

If you go with a direct enrollment plan, check to see what will be required to enroll. Not having an advisor doesn't mean you won't necessarily still have to communicate with someone, or pay a fee, or meet some other regulation.

Whatever plans are left after these considerations might have some criteria that outright disqualify you, particularly in state residency requirements, so double-check for those next. Most states don't have any residency requirements, but some do, including Louisiana (in which either the account holder or the beneficiary must reside in the state).

After that it's really just finding the other factors that are important to you. Enrollment incentives, matching, ease of guest contributions, program maintenance fees, portfolio swapping, stuff like that.

The workbook gives a birds-eye view of the underlying funds of each plan, but you'll need to dig deeper if you want to see the details on specific portfolios. I included numerous URLs for each plan that should get you closer to what you're looking for.

I'll be happy to try answering any questions you might have, but I'm still pretty new to this and I'm not a regular poster so don't take offense if I don't get back to you right away. And please check to see if your question's been answered in the workbook already! There's 60 columns of stuff in there.

Happy hunting.