Sociology Mind, 2018, 8, 345-365 http://www.scirp.org/journal/sm ISSN Online: 2160-0848 ISSN Print: 2160-083X DOI: 10.4236/sm.2018.84022 Oct. 30, 2018 345 Sociology Mind Children’s Savings Account Programs Enable Parents to Plan and Talk about College with Children and others William Elliott * , Briana Starks, Kristen Seefeldt, James Ellis School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Abstract The researchers adopted a positivist approach to qualitative research, hypo- thesizing that the interviews would reveal positive parental expectations and development of college-saver identity among Harold Alfond College Chal- lenge (HACC) participants. HACC is an opt-out children’s savings account asset intervention that begins at birth for children born in Maine. For this study, data were obtained through structured interviews of 22 families. Most parents in HACC describe having positive educational expectations and hav- ing developed a college-saver identity. More research is needed. Keywords Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs), College, College-Saver Identity, Educational Expectations, Identity-Based Motivation, Saving 1. Introduction Children’s savings accounts (CSAs) are interventions that aim to equip children with assets (Sherraden, 1991) and cultivate the development of identities consis- tent with educational attainment. In many cases, including in Maine’s Harold Alfond College Challenge, children receive CSAs at birth. This timeline takes advantage of the longer period of asset accumulation to build balances and in- fluence children’s development (Sherraden, 1991). CSAs are often capitalized with an initial deposit and augmented by transfers in the form of benchmark in- centives and savings matches (Goldberg, 2005; Loya, Garber, & Santos, 2017; Sherraden, 1991). CSAs are gaining traction around the country as more policymakers, phi- lanthropists, and educators become concerned about the high cost of education, How to cite this paper: Elliott, W., Starks, B., Seefeldt, K., & Ellis, J. (2018). Children’s Savings Account Programs Enable Parents to Plan and Talk about College with Child- ren and others. Sociology Mind, 8, 345-365. https://doi.org/10.4236/sm.2018.84022 Received: August 8, 2018 Accepted: October 27, 2018 Published: October 30, 2018 Copyright © 2018 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access