For decades, the major pension insurer for American academics—the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association / College Retirement Equities Fund, or TIAA-CREF—had virtual monopolistic control of its participants' savings. The funds were locked in until retirement and the only option thereafter was to purchase an annuity from the parent company. Those restrictions were removed in March of 1990. Many TIAA-CREF members—essentially the nation's million-plus university faculty and academic staff—have been slow to understand the significance of these changes. The commercial financial industry, by contrast, has seen that a huge "new" dollar pool has become accessible. TIAA-CREF's holdings are estimated at over ninetybillion dollars, making it the largest pension fund (and fourth largest insurance company) in the world. Financial professionals now realize they are free to sell their products "into" this pool and academics will shortly find themselves under increasing pressure to respond. According to William Enteman, academics need to understand now that they must make some decisions (to avoid them is severely to curtail later options) and that they need a source of totally objective advice about how to make them. Retirement 101 is the first and only guide written especially for academics and written specifically in response to the TIAA-CREF changes. In it readers will find clear, jargon-free, nonbiased advice on all aspects of retirement planning, arranged by the stages typical of an academic career: from paying off student loans to first appointment, through the tenure process, to emeritus status. Read Less