Investment Portfolios

Bright Start offers flexible investment options, low costs, quality fund families, no minimum contribution, no minimum balance, and options for all types of investor with different risk tolerance.

Bright Start Fund Family

Bright Start utilizes these quality fund families across its various investment portfolios: Age-Based, Target, and Individual Fund Portfolios. These quality funds and investment choices allow you to customize your account to your own investing style that aligns with your risk tolerance preferences whether its aggressive, moderate, or conservative.

Vanguard
Dimensional
T.RowePrice - Invest with Confidence
Dodge & Cox Funds

plus 8 additional fund families

Age-Based Portfolios

Age-Based Portfolios are professionally managed and automatically adjusted as the beneficiary approaches college age.

These adjustments are made from more aggressive, equity-focused investment allocations when the designated beneficiary is younger, to more conservative, fixed-income and cash investment allocations as the designated beneficiary gets older.

The Bright Start Age-Based Portfolios allow you to select between three investment styles: Conservative, moderate, and aggressive.

You also have the diversity and choice to select between two strategies:

  • Index Strategy that utilizes Vanguard funds
  • Multi-Firm Strategy that utilizes multiple fund families including T. Rowe Price, DFA, Vanguard, Dodge & Cox, and other quality fund families.
Learn More about Age-Based Portfolios

Target Portfolios

In contrast to our Age-Based Portfolios, Target Portfolios remain constant over time allowing account owners to select a fixed-asset allocation for the life of their account or until they make an investment change.

Each Target Portfolio has a different investment strategy and objective, and offers three different styles:

  • Equity Portfolio aggressive asset allocations feature greater exposure to equity-focused investment funds
  • Balance Portfolio moderate asset allocation focuses primarily on equity and fixed-income
  • Fixed Income conservative asset allocations focus primarily on fixed-income and cash investments.

You also have the diversity and choice to select between two strategies:

  • Index Strategy that utilizes Vanguard funds
  • Multi-Firm Strategy that utilizes multiple fund families including T. Rowe Price, DFA, Vanguard, Dodge & Cox, and other quality fund families.
Learn More about Target Portfolios

Individual Portfolios

To provide additional flexibility and choice, Bright Start offers 17 Individual Fund Portfolios. The account owner will be able to select any combination of the Individual Fund Portfolios to design a portfolio to meet their needs, risk tolerance, and investing style.

Learn More about Individual Portfolios

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.