TwinCities.com: Bush Foundation backs CollegeBound St. Paul with $3 million grant

Frederick Melo, TwinCities.com

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s office on Friday announced that the city had received a $3 million grant from the Bush Foundation to support college savings accounts for the city’s newborns, as well as related research.

The money will back CollegeBound St. Paul’s “Fund for the Future,” which aims to secure $35 million to permanently sustain the program. The city’s Office of Financial Empowerment is partnering with researchers at the University of Michigan to evaluate the impact of the $50 college savings accounts when paired with a separate guaranteed income pilot project.

The $50 accounts are assigned to kids born in the city, based on the strategy that families that have saved even small sums over the years are more likely to send their kids to college. Since CollegeBound launched on Jan. 1, 2020, the program has opened 7,447 savings accounts with over $900,000 in savings. The effort is co-chaired by Carter and Craig Leipold, owner of the Minnesota Wild.

Families who have a child born on or after Jan. 1, 2020, and have moved into the city, or who are otherwise not currently enrolled, can visit the enrollment page at collegeboundstp.com/enrollment.

Read the original article here.