Best-Performing College Savings Plans

The mutual fund industry has 523 answers to the question about what it's doing to help fund higher education.

That's the number of open-end mutual funds specifically designed as "529 college funding" vehicles. In fact, the industry could honestly claim nearly triple that number of solutions for college funding. Since many of the funds have multiple share "classes," there are around 1,500 total selections available to investors.

The aggregate net assets of these specialized funds is $54.8 billion.

These investment plans are named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code. They allow savings earmarked for higher education to accrue free from federal taxes. In many cases, they're also free from state taxes, so long as withdrawals are used for eligible college expenses. ...