Vanguard to Serve as Founding Partner in Research Consortium Dedicated to Strengthening the Education Savings Industry

VALLEY FORGE, PA (June 18, 2026)- Vanguard today announced its role as a founding partner in the newly created National Consortium on Education Savings Research (529 Consortium), a multi-institution partnership that brings together key researchers, state treasurers, state sponsors, and industry leaders to develop research that increases the understanding of and participation in education savings plans. Vanguard will support this initiative by providing investment and research expertise, thought leadership, and education savings insights.

"For more than 25 years, Vanguard has offered education savings solutions to investors and 529 plan sponsors, and we recognize how critical these savings can be to shaping a person's future," said Smitha Walling, Head of Vanguard's Education Savings Group. "We're proud to support the Consortium's important work of translating research findings into practical insights that can better support education savings outcomes and strengthen 529 plan design and participation."

The Consortium is organized around three core research goals:

• Build an integrated data platform to enable rigorous evaluation of 529 programs at scale.
• Generate research addressing questions critical to understanding the real-world uses of 529 plans.
• Translate research into actionable guidance that helps improve plan design, boosts 529 plan participation, and strengthens financial literacy.

"What surprised us most wasn't the income gap, it was the perception gap," said John List, Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago and BFI Director. "Sixty-one percent of parents who could save enough to cover half of college costs don't think their contributions are meaningful. That's not a resource problem, it's an information problem, and it's exactly what a research consortium built around rigorous, multi-state data can solve."

Founding partners in the consortium include the University of Chicago Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) and Stanford University Initiative for Financial Decision-Making (IFDM). The Consortium is convened by the National Association of State Treasurers (NAST) and receives primary funding and thought partnership from the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE). Additional consortium partners include Ascensus and the five founding state partners Illinois, Maine, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia.

This work builds on Vanguard's expertise in behavioral science and experimental economics to help scale evidence-based education savings solutions.

Research and updates will be made available via the Consortium's website: 529research.org