Saving for Children’s Future

Parents of young children have a truckload of financial stresses, not the least of which is finding affordable high-quality child care and pre-kindergarten programs. So it’s not surprising that low-income families are also struggling to save money for future expenditures, such as college tuition. To ask families to do both — pay for their children’s learning experiences when they are 3 and 4 and save up for their learning experiences at age 18 — is asking a lot.

The good news is that there are groups trying to make this easier for parents. Today at the National Press Club, our colleagues here at New America in the Asset Building Program were part of the release of a new report on child development accounts, which are essentially children’s savings accounts established at birth. Over at The Ladder, the program’s blog, our colleague Justin King synthesizes some of the key findings of the report. You can read more here about the full report, Lessons from SEED (Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship and Downpayment), edited by Michael Sherraden and Julia Stevens.