A nonprofit organization that provides investment and insurance services for those working in education, medicine, culture and research. TIAA-CREF, short for Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association - College Retirement Equities Fund, has a history that dates back to the late Andrew Carnegie, whose Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching created the initial organization in order to service the pension needs of professors. |||As of late 2005, the TIAA-CREF had more than 15,000 clients, amounting to more than $360 billion in assets under management. Its clients are predominantly institutional and come from the nonprofit and educational sectors. The firm started as a pension administration business, and the core operations of the TIAA-CREF remain geared toward retirement plan administration and a line of annuity products.