Fees might get all the headlines, but a recent survey ranks them last when it comes to lack of retirement readiness. “401(K)/IRA Holdings in 2013: An Update from the SCF,” by Alicia Munnell, the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, cites government data that identifies three factors more costly than fees.

The report focuses on what it calls the “missing $273,000.” This represents the difference between what we should expect the average 401(k) account balance to be and what it really is. Munnell broke down the difference into four distinct components. While she does maintain “plan sponsors clearly have room for improvement in the area of fees,” the data shows fees, based on the average mutual fund expense ratio, accounts for only $59,000 of the missing $273,000. Mind you, no one expects to get something for nothing, so some amount of fees must exist. More importantly, for all the bad press (much of it well deserved), three elements—all unnecessary—produce significantly more damage to retirement readiness than fees.

What Munnell calls “immature system” accounts for $65,000 of the missing $273,000. This phrase can best be described as people not beginning to save at an early age. The “immature” part presumably refers to the early years of the 401(k) vehicle. Employees were just getting their feet wet with the 401(k) concept and might have delayed participating as a result.