CSA Survey Links Boston Saves To Positive Youth Outcomes

Dr. Willie Elliott, a national expert on children’s savings accounts (CSA) at the University of Michigan, and Summitlab Consulting Group, have released first-year findings from their ongoing evaluation of Boston Saves. Boston Saves is the City’s CSA program, which has allocated $50 in seed funding to 15,000 Boston Public School students. The evaluation indicated that participation in Boston Saves was linked to statistically significant and positive effects on students’ social-emotional development, reading frequency, parental life satisfaction, and parental educational expectations.

The evaluation was conducted via a survey distributed to both Boston Saves-eligible and Boston Saves-ineligible families. Boston Saves and Boston Public Schools administered the survey to parents throughout the summer/fall of 2021, the second year of program implementation at scale. 

Among economically disadvantaged families involved in the Boston program, the evaluation found a 16% increase in parent-reported children’s social-emotional development compared to students not in Boston Saves.  Additionally, economically disadvantaged families involved in Boston Saves displayed stronger indicators of financial capability than similar families not involved in Boston Saves. For example, 58% of economically disadvantaged families in the program reported that they had a personal budget, spending plan or financial plan, compared to 33% of families not in the program.

The report summarizes the first year of a three-year partnership between Boston Saves and Summitlab funded by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation to provide ongoing evaluation of program development and impact. The Executive Summary can be found here, while the full report and infographics can be found at these links, respectively: Full Report | Infographics.  For more information on Boston Saves, please visit boston.gov/boston-saves.