Help With Texas Teacher 403b

[2B]

This is a rather specific question that can probably only be answered by someone in the Texas Teacher Retirement System. My daughter is trying to sign up for her 403b but is having some issues. I've been looking over their site to try to help pick a low cost fund but it's full of annuities with high fees and high fee mutual funds. Some have loads. It's a real pile of crap. You think they'd have a better system for teachers.

There isn't any local help other than "go to the website." My daughter said she's asked around and very few teachers participate. She got to hear all sorts of stories about how little they had saved, how far in debt they were, etc. It scared her that she could end up like that.

My question is what funds do you have in the system? I figure a good forum member that is a teacher in Texas has already researched the funds and can make a recommendation for a low cost index fund family.

TIAA-CREF has funds listed but they are also listed as "variable annuities." There doesn't appear to be any annuity fees or other issues I normally associate with annuities but I may be missing something. T. Rowe Price has a number of funds listed under "custodial accounts" so there isn't the "annuity" issue (if it even is an issue). They charge a $10 annual account fee for every fund bought that I'd like to keep from having my daughter pay.