Children’s Savings Accounts

Children’s Savings Accounts (CSA) are an example of government taking action to encourage savings. In the last decade, they have emerged as a promising tool that both fosters a college-going culture and a savings vehicle through which college funds can accumulate. Research shows that low- and moderate-income children that have as little as $500 saved for college are three times more likely to enroll in college and four times more likely to graduate than children without any college savings.

Commonwealth is engaged with increasing the success of CSA programs by doing research and consulting with initiatives to increase participation rates and on-going engagement.  For example, Commonwealth worked with the City of Boston by doing consumer research to understand the needs and wants of families with children in the Boston school system, designed marketing and enrollment materials and made recommendations on the features of the CSA product on offer based on this research.

FUNd My Future

In 2014, Commonwealth partnered with Propel schools to design a CSA program and helped with prize design, marketing materials for families, and legal barriers. In 2017, we again partnered with Propel and many other community organizations to support the expansion of the CSA program, FUNd My Future, from a Propel Schools program to a program that is now available to every child in Allegheny County.

The goal of the program is to help children and their families take practical steps that transform aspirations into reality and build confidence in the future as part of a citywide savings movement.

In order to ensure success of FUNd My Future, we conducted extensive consumer and expert research in order to recommend bank partners, options for infrastructure and technology, and ways to bolster engagement through small-dollar, instant savings. We also designed a prize structure, given their budget constraints, to make the CSA program a prize-linked savings program. We continue to partner with them to evaluate the program’s implementation and make recommendations for on-going improvements.

Boston Saves

Since 2015, Commonwealth has partnered with the City of Boston to help design a Children’s Saving Account that helps all Boston families save for their children’s futures through conducting original consumer research, advising on program development, and testing new features and designs. 

We have focused on increasing the desirability of CSAs by developing a user-friendly engagement platform with an open backend structure that Boston introduced in January of 2017. The user-facing end of the platform enables ongoing interaction among program providers and the students and families with CSAs. It offers an unprecedented opportunity for ongoing interaction and financial education throughout the life of the product—which can be as long as 14 years. The open backend enables families to choose the savings account that works best for them and their preferred financial provider. The City of Boston likes the open-ended backend because it relieves them of the responsibility for managing the financial operations of the program.