Recognizing the importance of a college education and the need to save for a child's college education, the state of Tennessee created the BEST Prepaid Plan, which began in 1997. This program is the State's 529 college savings plan that allows parents to pay for college for a beneficiary at today's price for future use. The plan looks at the average cost of tuition and mandatory fees at Tennessee's 4-year public universities. The average is adjusted based on attendance at each school to determine a weighted average tuition, which is then divided by 100 to arrive at an affordable "unit" cost. The price of one unit is based on one percent (or 1/100th) of the weighted average tuition, plus an amount to cover administration and actuarial soundness of the program. Each year as tuition changes, the weighted average tuition and the price of a unit is recalculated. The price of units purchased in future years will be based on the unit value calculated at that time. Currently there are over 8,600 participants in the BEST Prepaid Plan, and the plan has over 56 million in assets.