Fifty dollars is all it will take to get 3,000 kindergarten students in 13 rural Nevada communities on the right path to a college education. The state has initiated the Nevada College Kick Start Program, which will deposit $50 into a student's account through grants, private donations and management fees that banks and other
financial institutions pay the state, rather than from taxpayers, Reid Wilson reports for The Washington Post.
Only 22.1 percent of Nevada residents have a bachelor's degree, well below the national average of 28.1 percent, and in some rural counties the number is at low as 13 percent, Wilson writes. State Treasurer Kate Marshall told Wilson, “If you give a child a college savings account, even 10 bucks, it
doesn’t matter, the child tends to have a view that they have a future. The whole idea is, how do we facilitate a college-bound
culture?”
The George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis "found that children who have college savings accounts are almost seven times more likely to attend college than children without an account. Having a savings account, the study found, was a better predictor of whether a child would attend college than race or parents’ net worth," Wilson writes. "Marshall’s plan would provide up to $300 in matching funds for families that make less than $75,000 a year and put money into a college savings account. She said several of the firms that offer savings accounts to students have agreed to drop their enrollment fees to as low as $15. And those accounts will generate quarterly statements that allow Marshall to continue to communicate with parents on the importance of saving for college." (Read more)
The program has parents, teachers, and even students excited about the future, Bonnie Matton writes for the Mason Valley News, located in Yerington, a town with 3,000 residents in the eastern part of the state. Dayton Elementary School kindergarten teacher Bridget Thompson told Matton “It is so great to see parents thinking about their child’s education past high school in the first weeks of kindergarten. It seems like kids are 5 one day, and the next day they are looking at colleges. My kindergarteners were very excited to tell me, ‘I’m going to college!’” (Read more)
Only 22.1 percent of Nevada residents have a bachelor's degree, well below the national average of 28.1 percent, and in some rural counties the number is at low as 13 percent, Wilson writes. State Treasurer Kate Marshall told Wilson, “If you give a child a college savings account, even 10 bucks, it
doesn’t matter, the child tends to have a view that they have a future. The whole idea is, how do we facilitate a college-bound
culture?” The George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis "found that children who have college savings accounts are almost seven times more likely to attend college than children without an account. Having a savings account, the study found, was a better predictor of whether a child would attend college than race or parents’ net worth," Wilson writes. "Marshall’s plan would provide up to $300 in matching funds for families that make less than $75,000 a year and put money into a college savings account. She said several of the firms that offer savings accounts to students have agreed to drop their enrollment fees to as low as $15. And those accounts will generate quarterly statements that allow Marshall to continue to communicate with parents on the importance of saving for college." (Read more)
The program has parents, teachers, and even students excited about the future, Bonnie Matton writes for the Mason Valley News, located in Yerington, a town with 3,000 residents in the eastern part of the state. Dayton Elementary School kindergarten teacher Bridget Thompson told Matton “It is so great to see parents thinking about their child’s education past high school in the first weeks of kindergarten. It seems like kids are 5 one day, and the next day they are looking at colleges. My kindergarteners were very excited to tell me, ‘I’m going to college!’” (Read more)
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