Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Taking Stock Of Ten Years Of Research On The Relationship Between Assets And Children's Educational Outcomes: Implications For Theory, Policy, And Intervention, William Elliott Iii, Mesmin Destin, Terri Friedline

Center for Social Development Research

This paper has two main goals. First, we provide a review of 38 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 specifically, we propose that CDAs should be designed so that, in addition to promoting savings, they include aspects that help make children’s college-bound identity salient, congruent with children’s group identity, and that help children develop strategies for overcoming difficulties.