My wife works for the local school district, and when she started I helped her navigate the retirement plan options. They actually have numerous 403b providers

My wife works for the local school district, and when she started I helped her navigate the retirement plan options. They actually have numerous 403b providers to choose from, including Vanguard, but they basically offer no guidance (probably fear of some sort of liability or fiduciary duty). But of course they allow their providers to come to facilities and offer "retirement advising" meetings. Naturally, the most predatory providers are the ones that have sales people to send out to make field visits. What's worse is that it is very unclear that this is not a district/HR-sponsored event, but purely a sales meeting from a provider. My wife, thinking she was doing the responsible and proactive thing, went to one of these meetings with Valic. She very nearly got hooked into their scam of expensive, high-fee, garbage annuity products within her 403b. When she brought the paperwork home I was dumbfounded with how utterly terrible the product is, and how lengthy and opaque the prospectuses are. By the way, "Valic" literally means Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company. She was massively frustrated by the experience, especially on top of the stresses of being new to a job she nearly got suckered into an awful retirement plan, and the district does basically nothing to oversee that the providers are actually any good. Fortunately we were able to bail on Valic and sign up with Vanguard, which is a great option. Unfortunately, one has to a) know what they are looking for, and b) go out of their way to find it and sign up. This is one of those cases where "freedom of choice" devolves into "buyer beware". Having lots of options is not inherently a good thing when many of those options are hot garbage and information and guidance is not transparent.