Virginia College Savings Plan (VPEP)

Virginia College Savings Plan (VPEP)

Virginia College Savings Plan (VPEP) was established in 1994 as an independent agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia, building on enabling legislation designed to help families prefund higher education costs. Mary Morris has served as CEO since the plan's early years, steering its evolution from a single prepaid tuition program into a multi-option platform — including the nationally distributed Invest529 program — and serving as past chair of the College Savings Plans Network. The agency's board includes Virginia's Treasurer David L. Richardson as an ex-officio member and Lisa Jennings, a former PenFed Credit Union executive, as chair. VPEP's investment architecture follows a manager-of-managers model. The internal investment team, led by Investment Director Michael Swink, oversees asset allocation across age-based and static portfolios that span US and international equities, core fixed income, stable value, and private real estate. The Investment Advisory Committee includes Kristina Alimard of UVIMCO, providing a direct line to endowment-style portfolio thinking, alongside Berry and Nolde, who bring institutional alternatives expertise. Confirmed sleeves include a private core real estate portfolio holding US mixed-use assets and a stable value portfolio managed to preserve capital for near-term beneficiaries. The plan does not disclose a single aggregate AUM figure, though public record places total program assets above $100 billion in recent years. VPEP maintains active memberships in the College Savings Plans Network, the College Savings Foundation — where Morris is a former board chair — and the National Association of State Treasurers. Morris is also a member of the Institutional Limited Partners Association, reflecting engagement with institutional private-market governance standards. The agency operates the SOAR Virginia philanthropic initiative, which funds scholarships and early-commitment programs for low-income students. In May 2024, the plan completed a recordkeeping system conversion aimed at modernizing participant services across its 2.7 million account holders. VPEP's structural differentiator is the Investment Advisory Committee model, which imports governance talent from outsourced-CIO firms and university endowments into a $100 billion retail-oriented state trust. That committee composition — pairing a Lighthouse Partners founder with a UVIMCO investment professional — creates an investment oversight function that more closely resembles a pension or endowment board than a typical 529 plan. The agency's statutory independence from Virginia's treasury operations further insulates investment decisions from short-term political budgeting cycles.