Age is in the eye of the beholder.
Actuarially speaking, while 6-year-old savers are in the prime of their lives, 17-year-olds are virtually ancient in the newly created Golden State ScholarShare College Savings Trust, Sacramento, Calif.
The trust, which helps parents save for their children's college education, bases each child's asset mix on his or her age. Thus, a toddler will have a high equity allocation while a senior in high school will be heavily weighted in fixed income.
So far, the 6-week-old trust has a very young population, giving it a relatively high aggregate equity allocation, said Tom Dithridge, chief of the trust.
For starters, officials of the $3 million fund have chosen three new institutional funds run by TIAA-CREF to invest the assets, Mr. Dithridge said. The fund will invest in growth equity, bond and money market pooled vehicles; the funds are invested mostly in U.S. securities, but the stock and bond funds have leeway to invest internationally.
Fund officials may add other asset classes over time, but there are no plans to do so now.
Asset Strategy Group advised on investment issues.
Mr. Dithridge will leave the fund at the end of November to take a seven-week hiatus and then return to the California Department of Finance in an undefined role. His successor at the fund has not yet been named.
