William Elliott

University of Michigan | U-M · School of Social Work

In this study we conduct a quasi-experimental analysis comparing students who enrolled in Early Award Scholarship Program (EASP) (formerly Promise Scholars) at any time during the 2016–17 or 2017–18 school year with their counterparts who did not enroll in the program during this time. We employed an inverse-propensity weighting (IPW) design to adj...

Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) not only can help children and families to pay for expenses related to postsecondary education but also produce positive social and psychological effects, such as children’s college-bound identity. In this sense, CSAs provide a rich context for parent and child to communicate about college and ultimately for child...

Research indicates that welfare receipt is an important predictor of household savings towards offspring’s postsecondary education. Meanwhile, a growing body of literature suggests that Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) are effective in promoting the saving rate of American households. In this study, we first examine whether there is a negative as...

Prior research indicates that welfare receipt negatively affects households’ planning and saving for offspring’s post-secondary education. Recently, a growing body of literature suggests that Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) are effective in increasing the saving rate of American households. Findings of this study suggests that welfare receipt is...

Research indicates that children’s college expectations are an important predictor of children’s school outcomes and Children’s Savings Account (CSAs) are a predictor of children’s educational expectations. Typically measured with a single question, children’s college expectations have been used as s proxy for college-bound identity. Building on Id...

As the cost of college education continues climbing, college affordability eludes many low- to moderate-income families. Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) have been proposed as potential resources to build assets and help save for postsecondary education. While a large body of CSA research consists of testing relationships between program particip...

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153315/1/2020ZhangetalSM.pdf

This study draws data from a Children’s Savings Accounts (CSA) program and investigates the relationship between CSA enrollment policy (opt-in vs opt-out) and parental educational expectations. Opt-in programs require families to sign up to participate whereas opt-out programs automatically enroll participants. This study finds that Maine parents w...

The study examines school data and their association with participation in the Wabash County Promise Scholarships program, which combines Children's Savings Accounts (CSAs)with scholarships. CSAs are interventions designed to build educational assets for school age children. Policy makers are increasingly turning to CSAs as a way to augment efforts...

Though studies have clearly illustrated that education is one of the primary paths to upward mobility, a growing body of research is beginning to show that the returns on education are determined more by initial wealth than innate ability and exerted effort in school. This accounting directly contradicts Americans’ understanding of the promise of t...

-Educators, policymakers, and advocates concerned about persistent achievement gaps, stagnant upward mobility, and college unaffordability are increasingly turning to Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) as a policy intervention for catalyzing educational opportunity and equity. -While state-run 529 college savings plans largely benefit middle- and u...

The study conducts an initial examination of the associations between participation and saving in the Promise Indiana Children's Savings Account (CSA) program and school administrative data on attendance and standardized math and reading scores. The primary research questions guiding this analysis are whether or not having a CSA is associated with...

We use quantile regression models of Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data to assess whether initial net worth moderates the relationship between initial economic standing (net worth and income) and later net worth (measured in 2011). Conditional quantile regression results suggest the returns to an increase in 1989 net worth or income vary su...

In collaboration with the American Institute for Research, AEDI analyzed the effects of San Francisco’s K2C CSA on students’ absences and standardized math and reading scores. While the study found no statistically-significant differences in absences for children with K2C accounts and those who just missed the cutoff for enrollment, students with ‘...

The authors focused on participation in extracurricular activities as a way of improving the educational outcomes of children with disabilities. Regarding students in the general population, adolescent involvement in extracurricular activities has been shown to have a positive association with school involvement and adolescent self-esteem, academic...

Children's savings accounts (CSAs) provide early asset-building opportunities to reduce disparities in children's outcomes, particularly regarding postsecondary education and financial well-being. Promise Indiana (PI) is a state-supported and community-driven CSA program for children in kindergarten through third grade. This study used a mixed meth...

Children’s savings account programs are interventions that seek to engage disadvantaged children and their families in early college saving, cultivate college-saver identities, and reduce disparities in educational and economic outcomes. Existing research has revealed positive effects of CSAs on children’s outcomes, but questions remain about how a...

This paper presents evidence of the relationship between exposure to a community-based Children's Savings Account (CSA) program and parents' educational expectations for their children. We examine survey data collected as part of the rollout and implementation of The Promise Indiana CSA program. Although results differ by parental income and educat...

This study examines the association between educational loans and college graduation rates, with a focus on differences by race and ethnicity. Data come from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Results from the event history analyses indicate that educational loans are positively related to college graduation rates, but only up to a poi...

With the use of education loans growing rapidly as a way to finance college education, it is important to examine how such loans impact the future financial well-being. This study examines the association between education loans and postcollege wealth accumulation among young adults, the group with the greatest share of outstanding education loans....

Reviewing the data regarding effects of student debt on students’ financial outcomes following college – whether successful graduation or premature exit – makes clear that there is a price to pay for having to borrow money to go to college. Indebted college graduates have lower net worth, less home equity, and compromised ability to accumulate asse...

Is there a reciprocal relationship between household income and net worth and does that relationship depend on initial income? Using cross-lagged panel models of household income and net worth data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the authors compare the income-wealth relationships of high- and low-income households from 1989 to 2011. Adjus...

Reviewing the data regarding effects of student debt on students’ financial outcomes following college – whether successful graduation or premature exit – makes clear that there is a price to pay for having to borrow money to go to college. Indebted college graduates have lower net worth, less home equity, and compromised ability to accumulate asse...

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 n...

This paper chronicles the development of Children’s Savings Account (CSA) policy in the states that comprise the New England region: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. This paper does not seek to compare CSA programs within the New England states directly but does detail the origins, aims, delivery systems,...

Educational and financial institutions are increasingly partnering to open Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs); however, little is known about these partnerships’ effectiveness for planning and implementing CSAs. A 2011 invitational priority from the Department of Education encouraged partnerships between Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Un...

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 betwe...

Is it still worth it for low-income students to attend college, given the debt incurred? This book provides a new framework for evaluating the financial aid system in America, positing that aid must not only allow access to higher education, but also help students succeed in college and facilitate their financial health post-college. Higher educat...

As support for CSAs builds, U.S. advocates are focusing on building a national structure but face significant questions about how to best proceed. To help inform these deliberations, the Assets and Education Initiative (AEDI) and New America Foundation, with funding from the Ford Foundation, conducted an exploratory investigation of Canada’s educat...

• In this study we find that young adults who have a graduate degree and outstanding student loans are more likely to report being in debt than either bachelor degree holders or young adults with an associate degree or some college. Maybe more interestingly, young adults with student loans are more likely to report being in debt, regardless of coll...

In this report we posit that over-reliance on the student loan program is weakening the ability of the education path to act as the great ‘equalizer’ it is meant to be. Instead of dedicating our policy attentions to solving the problems created, exacerbated, or hastened by student loan reliance, we have mostly moved the goalposts, no longer expecti...

Children’s Savings Accounts—CSAs—have the potential to provide such an architecture, linking poor children with accounts and creating the space for receipt of public wealth-building transfers. This means rethinking CSAs as not just as vehicles for household savings, but also as infrastructure for asset transfers, consistent with American values. Th...

In this year of the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty, America stands at a crossroads. More Americans than ever question the calculus of the American dream: that effort and ability produce an opportunity for significant economic advancement. Meanwhile, a growing polarization of wealth decimates the middle class in size and in spirit. Underlyin...

The Assets and Education Initiative (AEDI) is an office in the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare (http://aedi.ku.edu). Its mission is to create and study innovations related to assets and economic well-being, with a focus on the relationship between children’s savings and the educational outcomes of low-income and minority children as a...

The Assets and Education Initiative (AEDI) is an office at the University of Kansas’s School of Social Welfare (http://aedi.ku.edu/). AEDI’s mission is to create and study innovations related to assets and economic well-being, with a focus on the relationship between children’s savings and the educational outcomes of low-income and minority childre...

This paper makes the case that the pattern low-income families walk into is a present time-oriented or consumption-based welfare system, with attendant incentives and disincentives; in contrast, the pattern higher-income families walk into is future-oriented or asset-based. These two divergent systems do not deliver equitable educational outcomes f...

Background and Purpose: College education is seen as a necessary step toward upward social and economic mobility. A more educated work force also enhances the productive capacity of the economy. However, Hispanics have the lowest rate of college attendance among all major racial/ethnic groups. Compounding the problem, Hispanic youth enroll disprop...

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...

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 ma...

Given the well-documented disparities in college attendance and completion rates by socioeconomic class, and the increasingly critical role that education plays in employment and economic mobility, a primary question for the twenty-first century is, “How do we achieve greater access to college and higher college completion rates for more of America...

Little is known about the impact of assets on low- to -moderate-income (LMI) young adults’ college progress. In this study college progress refers to young adults who were currently enrolled in, or who have a degree from, a 2-year college or a 4-year college. Findings from this study suggest LMI young adults with school savings were more than three...

In this study, the authors use the Survey of Consumer Finances to determine whether student loans are associated with household net worth. They find that median 2009 net worth ($117,700) for households with no outstanding student loan debt is nearly three times higher than for households with outstanding student loan debt ($42,800). Further, multiv...

A central hypothesis of Child Development Accounts (CDA) suggests that savings accounts in childhood lay a foundation for connecting to mainstream banking institutions and diversifying asset portfolios in young adulthood and beyond. While children may have limited savings to invest initially, they are financial actors who may increasingly invest mo...

This is the first study to examine whether parents’ college savings is positively associated with enrollment in postsecondary education of students in special education programs. In addition to examining postsecondary school enrollment among students with disabilities, we also examine whether students’ and parents’ college expectations act as a med...

This special issue of Economics of Education Review explores the role of savings and asset holding in post-secondary educational achievement. Most college success research has focused on income rather than assets as a predictor, and most college financing policy has focused on tuition support and educational debt, rather than asset accumulation. Ne...

Changes in financial aid policies raise questions about students being asked to pay too much for college and whether parents’ college savings for their children helps reduce the burden on students to pay for college. Using trivariate probit analysis with predicted probabilities, in this exploratory study we find recent changes in the financial aid...

This is paper four of four in the Small-Dollar Children's Savings Account series, which studies the relationship between children's small-dollar savings accounts and college enrollment and graduation. This series of papers examines three important research questions using different subsamples: (a) Are children with savings of their own more likely...

Welfare Based on Assets, a Way to Smooth Out Economic Instability and Develop Children's Human Capital is a four-part series of reports that focuses on the relationship between economic instability (i.e., income shocks, asset shocks, home loss, and asset poverty) and children's human capital development. Collectively, these reports build on the com...

This is paper one of four in the small-dollar children's savings account series, which, studies the relationship between children's small-dollar savings accounts and college enrollment and graduation. This series of papers uses different subsamples to examine three important research questions: (a) are children with savings of their own more likely...

This article focuses on unifying, seemingly at times, disparate aspects of school-related Child Development Account (CDA) programs in order to maximize their effects. Account ownership and financial education are the two key components of school-related CDA programs. Despite this most of the focus by asset theorists and researchers has been on the...

This is paper two of four in the small-dollar children's savings account series in this issue that examines the relationship between children's small-dollar savings accounts and college enrollment and graduation. This series of papers uses different subsamples to examine three important research questions: (a) Are children with savings of their own...

This is paper three of four in the Small-Dollar Children Accounts series that studies the relationship between children's small dollar savings accounts and college enrollment and graduation. The series uses different subsamples to examine three important research questions: (a) Are children with savings of their own more likely to attend or graduat...

Welfare Based on Assets, a Way to Smooth Out Economic Instability and Develop Children's Human Capital is a four-part series of papers that focuses on the relationship between economic instability (i.e., income shocks, asset shocks, home loss, and asset poverty) and children's human capital development. Collectively, these reports build on the comp...

This article presents results from an evaluation of an online statistics lab as part of a foundations research methods course for master's-level social work students. The article discusses factors that contribute to an environment in social work that fosters attitudes of reluctance toward learning and teaching statistics in research methods courses...

Background and Purpose: A compelling aspect of children‘s savings programs is their potential for changing how children think and act in regards to school. However, theory and research on the psychological effects of assets are in their early stages of development. One promising area of theoretical and research inquiry is the study of college expec...

Background and Purpose: With limited opportunities for accumulating savings for college, many high-achieving low-income students do not believe that a four-year college is within reach. They learn from a very young age that while college may be desired, it is not affordable – 43% report that college costs are very important for the type of school t...

In this study, the authors use the Survey of Consumer Finances to determine whether student loans are associated with household net worth. They find that median 2009 net worth ($117,700) for households with no outstanding student loan debt is nearly three times higher than for households with outstanding student loan debt ($42,800). Further, multiv...

In this study we examine predictors of adolescents' savings account ownership and use of mental accounting with a nationally representative, longitudinal sample of 744 adolescents ages 12 to 15 using Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Child Development Supplement data. We find sizable savings gaps along class lines. Further, findings suggest adoles...

This study examines the influence of parents' college savings for their child on Hispanic youth's four-year college attendance. Using hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM), we analyze a sample of 2750 Hispanic youth from the Education Longitudinal Survey (ELS: 2002/2006). Findings suggest that parents' college savings are significantly as...

Descriptive data indicate that 62% of White young adults between the ages of 17 and 23 years were on course (i.e., either in college or have graduated from college) in 2007, compared with only 37% of Black young adults. Given this, finding novel and promising ways to promote college progress among Black young adults, in particular, is a growing con...

Economic socialization theory emphasizes the role that family plays in whether or not youth develop a habit of saving, and is the dominant theory of youth savings. Differently, institutional theory is built on the premise that acquisition of financial knowledge and resources are strongly influenced by structural failures related to social class and...

Despite the importance of higher education, Hispanic immigrant youth still have far lower college attainment rate than whites in the U.S. Existing studies show the significant role of household assets on educational attainment even after controlling for income. Thus, this study examines the role of homeownership and school savings on Hispanic immig...

This paper has two main goals. First, we provide a review of 34 studies on the relationship between assets and children's educational attainment. Second, we discuss implications for Child Development Accounts (CDAs) policies. CDAs have been proposed as a potentially novel and promising asset approach for helping to finance college. More specificall...

A groundswell of interest in young people’s ability to understand and handle financial decisions has generated keen interest in financial knowledge and effectiveness of financial education. This study examines an innovative four-year school-based financial education and savings program, called “I Can Save” (ICS). Using a quasi-experimental design,...

‘Wilt’ occurs when a young person in high school expects to attend college but does not do so shortly after graduating. In this study we find that youth with no savings account in their own name are more likely to experience wilt than any other group examined. In multivariate analysis, young people who expect to graduate from a four-year college an...

This paper explores predictors of young adults’ savings using propensity score analysis and logistic regression with separate, longitudinal samples of whites and blacks aged 17–23 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We ask who saves among adolescents and young adults and whether the likelihood of having a savings account and the amount saved i...

This study has three goals: (1) to provide an extensive review of research on the assets/expectation relationship, (2) to provide a conceptual framework for how children's savings effects children's college-bound identity (children's college expectations are a proxy for children's college-bound identity), and (3) to conduct a simultaneous test of w...

Recent findings using traditional regression methods show that children's savings designated for school are associated with higher math scores. We build on this research by using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to confirm that children with school savings have higher math scores than those without school savings. Moreover, we suggest children's...

Increasingly, college graduation is seen as a necessary step toward achieving the American Dream. However, large disparities exist in graduation rates. For many families, the current family income is not enough to finance college. Therefore, many young adults have to rely on education loans, which may be difficult to repay, leaving them strapped wi...

This paper examines the progression of savings between adolescence and young adulthood. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we ask whether the likelihood of having a savings account in young adulthood and the amount of savings can be significantly predicted by two factors: having a savings account during adolescence and having paren...