Higher education retirement plan sponsors are looking to planadvisors to improve retirement readiness—and to make plansinto employee recruitment and retention tools.

So says a survey from Transamerica Retirement Solutions LLC,which found that higher ed institutions rely on a plan advisor orconsultant to help with investment selection, investmentmonitoring, and plan compliance.

Eighty-one percent of institutions with advisors tend to have aninvestment policy statement in place (considered an industry bestpractice, although it’s not required under the Employee RetirementIncome Security Act), compared to just 56 percent for plan sponsorsthat do not have an advisor. Smaller institutions of 5,000 or fewerparticipants tend to often rely on their advisor for an evenbroader range of services, such as acting as a plan fiduciary orassisting with plan design changes.

So that could be a good thing, since 403(b)s could have somecatching up to on fiduciary best practices. Just 60percent of sponsors are reviewing investments in plans. That’saccording to the Plan Sponsor Council of America’s annual review of403(b)s.

And they’re not necessarily issuing frequent requests forproposal (RFPs) to make sure their plans’ fees are competitive;just 40 percent do so, and 40 percent said they don’t do that atall.

On the other hand, 403(b)s offer far more in the way ofannuitized assets that will provideparticipants with lifetime income.

Twenty-seven percent of 403(b) assets are held in variableannuities, and another 26 percent in fixed annuities. Still,403(b)s used to be “completely annuitized,” before their slow butsteady shift to mutual funds.

The PSCA report also found that sponsors rely heavily onrecordkeepers more than any other source to deliver investmentadvice and education, with 73 percent offering funddescriptions.

In addition, 60 percent of sponsors say recordkeepers helpparticipants with how to invest savings and 54 percent of sponsorssay providers help participants with how much to invest in eachinvestment option.