A Case for Child Development Accounts

Properly designed Child Development Accounts (CDAs) can have lasting, positive effects on children's educational development and can improve their long-term economic outcomes. That's the argument of a new paper we're releasing today, "Investing in Children: Child Development Accounts as an Early Childhood Intervention," which was authored by two scholars at the University of Kansas' School of Social Welfare, Terri Friedline, an Asset Building Program Research Fellow, and Nik Schuetz. While much discussion of CDAs (also known as CSAs or Children's Savings Accounts; the terms are interchangeable) treats the accounts in isolation, Friedline and Schuetz argue that, to be most effective, CDAs should be situated within the broader context of other early childhood interventions like pre-K and Head Start.