Education savers in The Vanguard 529 Plan got a lucky boost that may have amounted to over $200 million when an error led to them getting more equity exposure than they signed up for as equity markets rallied in late 2020 and early 2021. The plan s state sponsor Nevada and its investment consultant crafted unintentionally riskier asset allocations for a suite of new portfolios developed to supplant its popular legacy suite of age-based portfolios. Last October, Vanguard applied these misguided recommendations, leaving accountholders in these new portfolios exposed to up to 20 percentage points more in stocks than they had bargained for, placing $12.5 billion of education savings in a precarious position. Since equity markets appreciated over that time, it s possible that accountholders invested in these troubled portfolios actually earned up to an additional 4%, until Vanguard corrected the error on March 24, 2021.