Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion

State 529 plans are tax-preferred vehicles for post-secondary education saving, administered by states, usually through contractual agreements with private financial institutions. In large part, 529s have served to intensify the distributional advantages that already accrue to more economically-privileged households. However, a small, but growing number of states are attempting to transform their 529 programs into Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) programs so that they better serve children and families disadvantaged economically and educationally. However, there has been little discussion about what might differentiate a CSA program administered through a 529 from a standard state 529 program. Using the case of Promise Indiana’s 529-based CSA as an example, this paper outlines what we believe to be some of the critical elements of Children’s Savings Accounts and the ways that they may help to change the distributional consequences of our current educational and economic systems, such that they facilitate, rather than frustrate, the aspirations of disadvantaged children. The paper traces the origins and evolutions of Promise Indiana, within a discussion of components of 529-based CSAs, identifies design features that align with Identity-Based Motivation, outlines the rationale for a wealth transfer within CSAs, and shares lessons for replication. The Promise Indiana’s model may be relevant in other parts of the country, particularly as communities consider how to address imperatives related to educational attainment gaps and rising student indebtedness, as well as their implications for upward mobility and broader prosperity.

Building on evidence of increasing inequality with the 2008–2009 recession, we asked whether households experienced different financial trajectories through the recession depending on initial income and net worth. Using growth curve models of households headed by young adults in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we compared the relationship between initial income and net worth and the rate of change of income and net worth from 1989 to 2011 among households with income above and below $50,000. We found different patterns of income change and different relationships among income, net worth, and their rates of change between high- and low-income categories. Results suggest initial wealth helped to stabilize income and wealth changes among higher income households, reducing financial insecurity.

Student loan balances climbed to $1.2 trillion at the end of 2014, and delinquencies are rising even as they fall for most other types of debt. In fact, students with the smallest balances are most likely to default. Judy Woodruff learns more from Megan McClean of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and William Elliott of the University of Kansas.

The current young adult generation is expected to lead a resurgence in entrepreneurial activities in the United States and these activities are expected to drive economic growth in the coming years. However, young adults may find it difficult to fulfill the expectations of becoming entrepreneurs and drivers of economic growth. This is because entrepreneurial opportunities are typically reserved for the wealthiest and most privileged Americans who have the financial resources needed to invest in starting small businesses, such as savings and access to credit. In contrast, young adults have not had much time to save money, build credit, or accumulate wealth. Moreover, given historic wealth inequalities rooted in racism and discrimination, young adults from racial and ethnic minority groups may be left out of the entrepreneurial resurgence and its economic benefits. This study analyzes nationally representative, longitudinal data to addresses the questions of whether young adults' wealth can support their entrepreneurial activities by becoming self-employed and whether black and Latino/a young adults leverage their wealth differently to support their entrepreneurial activities. Generally, the probability of being selfemployed;increases for all young adults as they accumulate wealth. However, wealth may play an outsized role in the self-employment of black and Latino/a young adults. Black and Latino/a young adults may not be able to rely on taking out a small loan at a bank or credit union in order to open their business; instead, they may be forced to use their own limited wealth for pursuing entrepreneurship. Policies are needed that support wealth accumulation (particularly for racial and ethnic minorities), remove discriminatory lending practices, and provide young entrepreneurs with access to credit.

This study explored relationships among young adults’ wealth and entrepreneurial activities with emphasis on how these relationships differ among racial and ethnic groups. Using data (N = 8,984) from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, results indicate that being Black or Latino/a, as well as liquid asset holdings and net worth, were significantly related to the likelihood of self-employment. In analyses disaggregated by race or ethnicity, greater liquid asset holdings were associated with the decreased likelihood of self-employment among white young adults. Black young adults’ greater debt and net worth were associated with increased likelihoods of entrepreneurial activity. Among Latino/a young adults, greater liquid asset holdings and net worth were associated with increased likelihoods of self-employment. Wealth may play an outsized role in the self-employment of black and Latino/a young adults compared to that of their white counterparts. Racial and ethnic minority young adults may have a heavier burden for generating their own capital to embark on entrepreneurial activities when mainstream credit markets are unresponsive or inaccessible. Policy implications are discussed.

Although some racial inequalities have lessened in the half-century since the passage of the first major civil rights legislation, the racial wealth gap remains and in recent years seems to be widening. Households with children are the least likely to be asset secure or have sufficient resources to enable investment in opportunities for mobility. Viewing inequality from this perspective indicates that what households are able to save and invest for the future might have a more lasting impact on the life chances of children than their current income and consumption. Summarizing data from the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Downpayment (SEED) Initiative, a quasi-experimental study that is part of a national demonstration of Child Development Accounts (CDAs) in the United States, this paper describes how African-American households engage with one important investment opportunity - college savings accounts for their pre-school children. Combining account monitoring, survey, interview and focus group data, we explore the reasons that many households chose not to open accounts or invest their own money. We offer suggestions for making asset development programs viable for low-income African-American families and their children.

While we believe that there are significant lessons to be learned from the Canadian experience with education savings programs, as the United States moves towards more comprehensive Children’s Savings Account (CSA) policy, we begin with the perhaps obvious acknowledgement that there are some noticeable differences in the political, educational, and economic contexts of Canada and the United States. For example, in 2011, Canada ranked first in overall post-secondary education (PSE) attainment among OECD countries, with more than 50% of adults ages 25 to 64 having some PSE credentials (Kenney, 2013), while the U.S. ranks 14th, with 42% attainment (OECD, 2012). Perhaps related, economic mobility rates—the likelihood that a child born into poverty will not stay in poverty as an adult—are far higher in Canada than in the U.S. (Corak, 2010). Analysis finds that a son raised in the bottom decile in Canada has about the same chances of reaching the top half of the earnings distribution as a third-decile son in the United States; being Canadian instead of American, then, provides as much of a mobility advantage as being born into a family three times more prosperous (Corak, 2010). Although income inequality is increasing in Canada, the distribution of economic advantage is still far more equitable than in the United States (Corak, 2010). This is transmitted to the PSE arena, as well, where the income attendance gap is smaller than in the U.S. (Belley, Frenette, & Lochner, 2011). Despite these and many other differences, there are enough similarities between the Canadian Education Saving Program (CESP) and, particularly, state-sponsored 529 savings programs in the U.S. that each can still inform the other in important ways.

Harnessing Assets to Build an Economic Mobility System provides new empirical insights that help to explain what so many Americans intuitively grasp, and what U.S. policy debates so studiously ignore: Upward economic mobility and a chance at financial security are slipping beyond the grasp of many households. This report examines the drivers of mobility by distinguishing between standard of living, which is related to consumption and available income, and economic mobility and wellbeing, which require assets in addition to income and fuel multiplier effects. The former is supported by the consumption-based welfare system, including programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly food stamps), which is designed to help households exit poverty and consume at a level consistent with a near-poverty level. Upward mobility and wellbeing is advanced by an asset-based welfare system, largely made up of tax credits and deductions that helps more advantaged Americans accumulate assets. By highlighting the significance of assets for achieving economic mobility and true wellbeing, this analysis emphasizes the importance of building policy structures capable of helping households generate assets, not just increase income. The report proposes Economic Mobility Accounts—tax-advantaged savings accounts that help Americans of all income levels save and accrue assets across the life course—as a policy structure that may once again make upward mobility accessible to all Americans.

Harnessing Assets to Build an Economic Mobility System provides new empirical insights that help to explain what so many Americans intuitively grasp, and what U.S. policy debates so studiously ignore: Upward economic mobility and a chance at financial security are slipping beyond the grasp of many households. This report examines the drivers of mobility by distinguishing between standard of living, which is related to consumption and available income, and economic mobility and wellbeing, which require assets in addition to income and fuel multiplier effects. The former is supported by the consumption-based welfare system, including programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly food stamps), which is designed to help households exit poverty and consume at a level consistent with a near-poverty level. Upward mobility and wellbeing is advanced by an asset-based welfare system, largely made up of tax credits and deductions that helps more advantaged Americans accumulate assets. By highlighting the significance of assets for achieving economic mobility and true wellbeing, this analysis emphasizes the importance of building policy structures capable of helping households generate assets, not just increase income. The report proposes Economic Mobility Accounts—tax-advantaged savings accounts that help Americans of all income levels save and accrue assets across the life course—as a policy structure that may once again make upward mobility accessible to all Americans.

We examined households’ dynamic patterns of net worth accumulation between 1999 and 2009 and asked whether these patterns related to the financial health of young adults growing up in those households. Two patterns of net worth emerged—the first remained high and stable and the second experienced a precipitous decline between 2007 and 2009. Young adults who grew up in households with high and stable net worth also experienced the greatest benefit in financial health. Given wealth losses in the wake of the Great Recession and the ripple effects those losses may have had—and may continue to have—on households and their children, policies that stimulate wealth accumulation may be feasible and timely strategies for improving financial health.

In this webinar presentation, we'll be answering 3 core questions: Why Canada and why now? What are CSAs and what are they intended to achieve? What can we learn about CSA programming and policy design by looking at Canada's experience?

Child Development Accounts (CDAs)—specially designed accounts opened in children’s own names—are a preventive, economic intervention that can complement investments made by existing early childhood interventions and advance their mission of helping children reach their full potential. Poverty is an inhibitor of children’s opportunities for educational and economic advancement. Federal, state, and local governments have dedicated substantial resources to mitigating the effects of poverty. CDAs are a complementary strategy with great potential but one that is underutilized. The positive outcomes of CDA ownership and development can be supported by appropriate policy design and by providing appropriate, intentional preparation to children about their CDAs.

Related items: Examining The Canadian Education Savings Program and Its Implications for U.S. Child Savings Accounts (CSA) Policy Webinar: Canadian Savings Education Report

This study examines savings from childhood to young adulthood with a sample of 14,223 individuals from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). We employed a cohort sequential accelerated latent growth model that combined a series of cohorts to represent a common developmental trajectory spanning 19 years—ages 16–35—and accounted for relevant covariates. Descriptively, the proportions of savings account ownership increased steadily between ages 16 and 30 and then leveled off. In other words, a critical time for intervention may occur between ages 16 and 30 when the proportion of account ownership is increasing. Proportions of savings accumulation also rose steadily, with a mean low of $636 between ages 16 and 20 to a mean high of $1,160 between ages 31 and 35. Gender, race, employment status, and household income and net worth were associated with initial variability in savings at ages 16–20 and rate of change in savings over time through age 35. Results can inform policies and programs that open savings accounts for children as a way of helping them remain financially secure across their life course.

Postsecondary education costs in the United States today are rising with an increasing shift from societal responsibility to individual burden, thereby driving greater student borrowing. Evidence suggests that (i) such student debt may have undesirable educational effects and potentially jeopardize household balance sheets and (ii) student loans may better support educational attainment and economic mobility if accompanied by other, non-repayable financial awards. However, given declines in need-based aid and falling state support for postsecondary costs, policymakers and parents alike have failed to produce a compelling complement to debt-dependent financial aid that is capable of improving outcomes and forestalling assumption of ever-increasing student debt for a majority of U.S. households. This article, which relies on longitudinal data from the Educational Longitudinal Study, finds parental college savings may be an important protective factor in reducing debt assumption. However, several other factors increase the likelihood students will borrow: perceiving financial aid as necessary for college attendance, expecting to borrow to finance higher education, having moderate income, and attending a for-profit college. After controlling for student and school variables, the authors find that parental college savings increase a student’s chance of accumulating lower debt (less than $2,000) compared with students lacking such savings. Policy innovations to increase parental college savings—such as children’s savings accounts—could be an important piece of the response to the student debt problem in the United States.

American society reflects considerable class immobility, much of which may be explained by the wide gaps in college completion rates between economically advantaged and disadvantaged groups of students. First, we discuss the factors that lead to unequal college completion rates and introduce assets as an explanation often ignored by stratification scholars. We then discuss how a legacy of wealth inequality has led to wealthy students having an advantage at the financial aid bargaining table over low-income and minority students. We conclude by discussing how asset-building policies such as children’s savings accounts offer a potential policy strategy to alter the distributional consequences of the current financial aid system and help level the playing field.

A question of interest in children’s savings research asks whether there are unique effects on children’s later savings when savings accounts are opened in their names earlier in life, either independently from and or simultaneously with accounts in which parents save on children’s behalf. Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study created a combined measure of children’s (ages 12–19) and parents’ savings account ownership to predict savings outcomes in young adulthood (ages 20–25). All possible combinations of children’s and parents’ account ownership were significantly related to young adults’ savings account ownership; however, only children’s savings account ownership was significantly related to savings accumulation. Implications for the independent effects of savings accounts in children’s names are discussed.

According to Shapiro, the American Dream “is the promise that those who work equally hard will reap roughly equal rewards” (Shapiro, 2004, p. 87); that is, the American Dream holds that this country is a meritocracy where effort and ability are the primary determinants of success. Institutions provide the economic conditions that make it possible for people to believe that their hard work and ability will determine their success or failure. This task is facilitated by Americans’ strong desire to feel as though their destiny can be controlled and that institutions will ‘echo’ their own contributions, rather than work against them.1 Primed to look for evidence of this ‘effort plus ability equals outcomes’ equation, Americans cling to this ideal, even as it recedes in reality for many. There is no evidence that Americans today are less capable or less committed than in previous generations, in the aggregate. Instead, particularly in today’s highly specialized, technology driven, global world, the upward mobility that animates the American Dream is only possible if effort and ability are combined with institutional might.

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