Newborns in St. Paul get $50 to jump start college savings account
Mayor Carter poses for a photo with one of the first families to get the scholarship.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - The City of St. Paul is making sure babies born on New Year's Day get a jumpstart on 2020 and their futures.
Starting Wednesday, every baby born in St. Paul gets a $50 college savings account. To mark the new policies, Mayor Melvin Carter was on hand to welcome the newest batch of babies for the city.
"Research shows that children from low and moderate-income families who have more than one dollar set aside for college savings when they graduate from high school are three times more likely to go to college," said Mayor Carter.
The College Bound St. Paul savings accounts complete a campaign promise of Mayor Carter from two years ago. With the help of a half a million dollars from the state legislature, it ensures that every child born in St. Paul for the next two years gets a $50 starter college account.
For the Vang family, it means not just a new college account for their son Rowan born Wednesday. Mayor Carter hopes it also promotes a change in mindset.
"The goal of this is certainly not to just put $50 in a bank and sort of come back 18 years from now," he said. "The goal is to build a relationship with families, to engage families to build that college-going culture in our city. That’s why the universal automatic enrollment is so important."
The mayor says about 5,000 babies are born in St. Paul every year. State Representative Dave Pinto says part of the state funding for the St. Paul college savings accounts is to figure out how the program can go statewide.