AllianceBernstein, the program manager for Rhode Island's 529 college savings plan CollegeBoundfund, Providence, has made a series of changes to the plan, said AllianceBernstein spokesman Jonathan Freedman.
One of the changes to the $7.7 billion fund includes adding a passively managed age-based index investment option — CollegeBoundfund Morningstar Age-Based Index Portfolio. The funds within the new option, which AllianceBernstein will manage, are designed to track Morningstar's 529 College Savings Moderate indexes and leverage Morningstar's asset allocation and index construction expertise to provide a mix of assets targeted to each saver's age. AllianceBernstein then builds the portfolios with index funds to keep costs low. The portfolio was available for investment as of Mondayand is an addition to CollegeBoundfund's current actively managed options.
Rhode Island's State Investment Commission approved in October the creation of passive age-based investment options.
AllianceBernstein also made a series of changes to the underlying funds in the active age-based and fixed-allocation portfolios, which it manages, such as moving both U.S. growth and value portfolio assets to a growth and income fund, and moving international growth and value fund assets to a newly added international factor portfolio.
AllianceBernstein also added a bond inflation strategy as an additional stand-alone fund option.
