Retirement Planning for Yale University
Retirement Planning for the Yale Community
You've Built a Career at Yale. Let's Make Sure Your Retirement Reflects It.
Specialized retirement planning for Yale faculty, staff, and affiliated physicians — built around YURAP, your 403(b) and 457(b), TIAA Traditional, and the benefit decisions that are unique to working at Yale.
The Challenge
Yale's Benefits Are Excellent. They're Also Genuinely Complicated.
Between YURAP, your 403(b) and 457(b) elections, TIAA Traditional's payout structure, and the university's phased retirement options, most of the Yale community reaches their fifties with more retirement accounts — and more open questions — than any single resource is built to answer.
01
How does TIAA Traditional's liquidity actually work?
Payout annuities, interest-only options, and the transfer restrictions that catch people by surprise.
02
Should I use the 403(b), the 457(b), or both?
Different rules, different distribution timing, different roles in your overall income plan.
03
Does Yale's phased retirement plan make sense for me?
What the salary step-down actually looks like, and how it interacts with your benefits and income.
04
How do I coordinate Medicare with Yale's retiree health options?
Enrollment timing, coverage gaps, and how it all fits your broader income strategy.
05
What does a physician's benefit package add to the picture?
Academic medicine often layers hospital-side plans on top of Yale's — worth untangling early.
06
Is my beneficiary and estate planning keeping up?
Retirement accounts transfer by beneficiary form, not by will — worth reviewing regularly.
Our Role
More Than a TIAA Calculator
Yale's HR and benefits resources can tell you what your options are. What they're not built to do is tell you which combination of those options actually makes sense for your specific retirement — coordinated with your taxes, your other accounts, and the life you want to live once you stop working. That's where we come in.
Why Tidewater
Why Yale Faculty, Staff, and Physicians Work With Us
We spent our careers where you work.
Tidewater's founding partners spent their careers at TIAA, working almost exclusively with people in higher education, academic medicine, and research — including the Yale community specifically.
We're a block from campus.
Our New Haven office sits one block from Yale's campus. We're not a national call center — we're a firm you can walk to.
We understand physician benefit structures.
Academic medicine brings its own layer of complexity — from Yale–New Haven Hospital affiliations to the way physician compensation and benefits interact with university plans.
We coordinate every account, not just one.
YURAP, 403(b), 457(b), TIAA Traditional, outside IRAs — we build one withdrawal and tax strategy across all of it, not a plan for each account in isolation.
We look beyond the numbers.
A good retirement plan accounts for the life you want to live after Yale — whether that's phased retirement, travel, time with family, or continuing to teach or consult. We build the financial plan around that picture, not the other way around.
How It Works
A Straightforward Process, Built Around Your Timeline
01
Start With You
A conversation about your career at Yale, your accounts, your timeline, and what retirement actually looks like for you — before any numbers get run.
02
Design Your Plan
We build a coordinated strategy across YURAP, your 403(b)/457(b), TIAA Traditional, Social Security, Medicare, and taxes — with a clear withdrawal order and timeline.
03
Adapt as Life Changes
Retirement dates shift, tax law changes, markets move. We meet regularly to keep your plan current — not a one-time projection that sits in a drawer.
Coordinated, Not Siloed
You Shouldn't Have to Be Your Own Benefits Office
Between Yale's benefits office, your CPA, your estate attorney, and TIAA itself, it's easy to end up as the only person holding the full picture. We sit at the center of that coordination — so nothing falls through the cracks between accounts, advisors, and paperwork.
Tidewater
Wealth Management
Wealth Management
Yale Benefits Office
CPA / Tax Professional
Estate Attorney
TIAA
How We Help
The Work Behind the Relationship
1
Investment Management
One coordinated investment strategy across your 403(b), 457(b), TIAA accounts, and any outside IRAs — built around your actual retirement timeline.
2
Tax Management & Retirement Distribution Planning
A withdrawal sequence built specifically around TIAA Traditional's payout structure and your other accounts — designed to reduce your lifetime tax bill.
3
Retirement & Financial Planning
Social Security timing, Medicare coordination, phased retirement modeling, and estate and beneficiary review — all in one plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions We Hear From the Yale Community
Why work with a specialized advisor instead of just using Yale's resources?
Yale's benefits office and TIAA can explain what your options are and help with elections and paperwork. What they aren't positioned to do is build a coordinated income and tax strategy across every account you hold, recommend Roth conversion timing, or fit your retirement plan around Medicare, Social Security, and your estate plan at the same time. That coordination is where we focus.
What's the difference between YURAP, my 403(b), and my 457(b)?
Each plan has different contribution rules, distribution timing, and tax treatment. Generally speaking, the 457(b) has different early-withdrawal rules than the 403(b), and YURAP contributions are structured differently still. The right sequence for drawing from each depends on your full financial picture — this is one of the first things we walk through together.
When should I start planning for retirement from Yale?
The most valuable planning window is generally five years out — enough time to model Roth conversions, adjust your savings strategy, and understand your phased retirement options. The most time-sensitive window is the final year, when TIAA Traditional payout elections, Medicare enrollment, and benefits paperwork all have real deadlines.
How does TIAA Traditional's payout structure affect my options?
TIAA Traditional isn't as liquid as a typical mutual fund account — depending on your contract type, you may be limited to specific payout or transfer windows. Understanding your specific contract (RA, GRA, SRA, or GSRA) is a key first step, and it's something we review as part of every plan.
Is there a minimum amount of assets to work with Tidewater?
There's no strict minimum. Complexity — not account size — is usually what determines whether specialized planning adds real value, and most members of the Yale community accumulate that complexity well before they accumulate significant assets.
What are Tidewater's advisors' credentials?
Tidewater's partners hold the CLU®, ChFC®, and CFP® designations and spent their earlier careers as Wealth Management Advisors at TIAA Financial Services, working almost exclusively with clients in higher education, academic medicine, and research.
"The goal isn't to add another meeting to your calendar. It's to give you confidence that your
TIAA accounts, your taxes, and your Yale benefits are all working toward the same retirement."
Your accounts, coordinated
Every Yale-specific account working toward one withdrawal strategy.
Taxes considered, not an afterthought
Roth conversions and withdrawal order planned years in advance.
Your family prepared
Beneficiary designations and estate coordination kept current.
Attention when things change
A plan dates, tax law, and life circumstances all adjust for.
That's What Retirement Planning at Tidewater Looks Like for the Yale Community.
Schedule a Consultation
Advisory services offered through NewEdge Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Tidewater Wealth Management is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Yale University. Yale is named here solely to describe the client community Tidewater serves.