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Investment advisory titan TIAA, which provides financial services and retirement planning at numerous universities, is accused of steering customers toward pricier investment products that boost the firm’s bottom line, according to a whistleblower report first covered by NBC News.
An anonymous whistleblower filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging TIAA misled clients by pushing them toward in-house investment tools, which the firm claimed provided tailored advice to participants, but failed to disclose that TIAA consultants benefited when investors changed their portfolios based on such recommendations.
TIAA paid $97 million in 2021 to settle similar complaints that had been alleged for years.
“Several thousand” of TIAA's 12,000-plus institutional clients are colleges and universities, a company spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed. The spokesperson also downplayed the claims reported by NBC News, writing that “TIAA does not put its own interests ahead of our clients. Any claims to the contrary are false.”
