470 - Shifting Hope to An Expectation of A College Bound Future

Poster Number: 470
Publication Number: 470.593

Background: Brilliant Baby (BB) is one of the first Child Savings Account (CSA) programs to connect a program of financial education, stipends, and financial coaching for parents, to a funded college-saving account for their child. Our hypothesis was that participating caregivers will experience improved health and financial outcomes and higher expectations for their child’s educational future. Children will achieve improved educational and health outcomes.  NORC at the University of Chicago partnered with the Oakland Promise and the University of California, San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland (BCH Oak) to conduct a longitudinal, randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluating BB.

Objective: To understand if starting college savings accounts for low-income families during the child's first 12 months of life changes parental hope, child health and educational expectations of caregivers for their children.

Design/Methods: Eligible families with children aged 2-9 months were recruited to assess the impact of BB. Eligibility was based on being an Oakland, CA resident and Medi-Cal eligible. Recruitment took place from May 2018 through March 2020.
Children were randomly assigned upon enrollment to one of three groups:
Control group: This group received “standard of care” at BCHO and no Brilliant Baby programming.
CSA only group: In addition to receiving standard of care, a 529 College Savings Account (CSA) seeded with $500 was established for each child.
CSA + coaching group: In addition to receiving standard of care and a CSA, parents were contacted by a financial coach who encouraged them to participate in one-on-one financial coaching sessions.
This report examines the initial program impact from baseline through follow-up when babies were approximately 18 months old. Outcome measures were analyzed using multivariate regression modeling to test the differences between groups at follow-up.

Results: By the time babies had reached 18 months of age, families that received BB programming in the CSA only and CSA + coaching groups showed benefits relative to the control group across multiple domains, including improved hope, health, and financial well-being, as well as more favorable beliefs about their child’s educational future.

Conclusion(s): These early findings add to a growing body of evidence reflecting the positive association between Child Savings Accounts and educational outcomes of children from low-income backgrounds. Embedding sign up for CSAs in pediatric primary care clinics offers a resource for providers and community members to be part of the solution to addressing key determinants of health.