As soon as I was eligible, I signed up at Amherst for TIAA-CREF. Partly because I started early, it's the best investment I've ever made. I had a few jobs that used Mutual Of America, but later moved those funds to a GSRA at TIAA-CREF. I've recruited dozens of friends and family to become TIAA-CREF participants, and agitated successfully for companies where I worked to offer TIAA-CREF as a 403(b) plan. I helped my mother chose TIAA-CREF over AARP for her Long-Term Care Insurance. (Ka-pow: Then they sold the business to Met Life!) She's already retired with a TIAA-CREF annuity.
I'm currently a union stagehand in New York City. My theater, where I run the light board, is operated by a not-for-profit tax-exempt foundation that offers us TIAA-CREF. Before that, I was a house stagehand at Avery Fisher Hall, where Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts offered TIAA-CREF (and other) 403(b)'s.
It breaks my heart to set myself up in opposition to them. But it's not the same company I originally joined. You can't believe everything you read on the internet, so I don't expect you to take my opinions as fact, or my facts as correct (although I've tried to check everything I've posted here.) But I hope you'll pay close attention, to make sure that your money is well-handled.
This site is intended to focus on expenses, the ones we pay to TIAA-CREF to invest our money. I don't mean to suggest that any money-management company, even a non-profit, can do business for free. But the company that was originally set up by the Carnegie Foundation to work for a public good may have strayed from that mission. You be the judge.
Conflicts of Interest: TIAA-CREF is my single largest retirement investment. I have no desire to weaken the company, quite the contrary! My only direct investment in financial services companies are regional bank stocks which do not compete with TIAA-CREF. My non TIAA-CREF mutual funds certainly own the stocks of competitors, but I have nothing to do with their investment selections.
By the way, at least for now, TIAA-CREF is not publicly owned. TIAA says they're not-for-profit in their New York State insurance company charter, and CREF is a New York State Type B not-for-profit corporation.
This site is blue and white in memory of the annual statements/benefit estimates TIAA-CREF used to send out, which were called "Blue and White Sheets".
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