Assets held in 529 college savings plans fell 3% in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter and 22% from a year earlier, to $85.9 billion, according to data collected by Financial Research Corp. for the College Savings Foundation.
Gross sales fell 1% compared with the previous quarter, Financial Research said Tuesday. The Boston company did not give a year-over-year comparison for gross sales.
Investors in 529 plans increased their participation in automatic savings accounts in the first quarter. After declining 31% in the fourth quarter, automatic funding rose 38% in the first quarter.
Age-based portfolios continued to make up the majority of reported assets under management — 66.1% of the assets under management held in these products at the end of the first quarter, down from 66.7% at the end of the fourth quarter.
A telephone survey by Country Financial of Bloomington, Ill., had similar findings. Sixty-one percent of the 1,241 people polled said they were not letting the recession change their plans for their children's college education, and 47% said college plans were a higher priority than retirement savings.
The Country Financial survey results were released Tuesday.
