Take steps to achieve your dream. Create a strategy that’s right for you. The Alabama Higher Education 529 Fund lets you customize your college investment program so you can:

Invest according to your time horizon. The amount of time you have to build your investment depends on the number of years you have until your student enrolls in college. You should consider your investment horizon when you select any combination of portfolio options.

Invest according to your risk-tolerance level. Each investment option carries a designated level of risk. As your student approaches college, you may want to make adjustments. You can make changes once a year.

Design a personalized investment mix. You can choose to combine the different investment options (Years to Enrollment, Fixed and Individual Fund Portfolios) to create your own asset allocation. Asset allocation means diversifying an investment across asset classes and styles. Through diversification, you may reduce overall risk. Because investments rarely move in unison, the strong performance of one investment may offset poor performance in another. When you are comparing asset-allocation strategies, consider all of the following: your time horizon, your personal savings and investments, your retirement assets, your risk tolerance, and how much you want to be involved with the management of your portfolio.

Three Investment Plans Tailored to Your Needs

Years to Enrollment Portfolios
Years to Enrollment Portfolios are built around the number of years until the student enters college. You can choose a portfolio to match your investment risk-tolerance: aggressive, moderate or conservative.
Take a look at the Years to Enrollment chart below. Through the years, to reduce exposure to risk, assets will be moved automatically into more moderate, and then more conservative, portfolios.

Number of Years to Enrollment

Fixed Portfolios
Fixed Portfolios let you invest in the asset type you choose—equities, bonds, or short-term government bonds and cash equivalents. With Fixed Portfolios, you can help reduce risk or help enhance potential returns by allocating your investment across one or more of the Fixed Portfolio strategy options.

An investment in the program is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency. Although the underlying money market fund seeks to maintain a net asset value of $1.00 per share, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.

Individual Fund Portfolios
Individual Fund Portfolios let you truly customize an asset allocation strategy. Select from domestic stock, bond, global and international portfolios. Unlike the Fixed Portfolios, which include multiple Van Kampen mutual funds, each Individual Fund Portfolio is invested in only one Van Kampen mutual fund.

Customize Your Investment With:

Above charts used with permission.
©2007 Ibbotson Associates Inc.
All rights reserved.
For illustrative purposes only. These are not recommendations of specific investments.