Ninety-seven % of kindergartners throughout town have entry to a New York Metropolis Scholarship Account — a sort of school financial savings plan with an preliminary funding of $100 offered by town in hopes of giving college students an avenue to pay for school or profession coaching, and shutting the generational wage hole, the mayor introduced Wednesday.
“We need tangible and practical solutions to reduce the racial wealth gap, even more now as we emerge from the pandemic,” Mayor Eric Adams stated in an announcement. “The Save for School Program can cut back the quantity that college students and households must borrow in scholar loans, combatting the coed debt disaster that has disproportionately impacted college students of shade.”
A complete of $6.5 million has been invested this yr in 65,300 NYC Scholarship Accounts for college students collaborating within the NYC Youngsters RISE Save for College Program. This program is a public-private-community partnership designed to make school and profession coaching extra accessible to public faculty college students, no matter earnings or immigration standing.
In keeping with town, analysis discovered that youngsters with a university financial savings account of simply $1 to $500 are 3 times extra prone to go to school and greater than 4 occasions extra prone to graduate.
With that in thoughts, this faculty yr kicked off this system wherein kindergarteners enrolled in one of many metropolis’s public faculty, together with collaborating constitution faculties, will mechanically obtain a scholarship account invested with $100 from NYC Youngsters RISE, except their households select to not take part in this system.
Households can activate their kindergarteners’ NYC Scholarship Accounts from the Save for School Program.
“Today is a historic day — we are taking a giant step towards making college and careers more accessible to our students,” New York City Department of Education Chancellor David C. Banks said in a statement. “The money being deposited in accounts today plant the seeds that will instill a sense of financial literacy and open doors for our young people for decades to come.”