OVER 30,000 LOW-INCOME high school seniors in the San Francisco Unified School District have yet to claim the money in their automatic college savings accounts.
The program Kindergarten to College, or K2C, sets up a universal savings account with an initial deposit of $50 for every public school student in San Francisco, regardless of income. Meanwhile, the California Kids Investment and Development Savings Program (CalKIDS) allocates between $500 and $1,500 for eligible low-income students upon graduation.
Together, the funds could be instrumental for low-income students to afford higher education, covering essentials like books and fees. Families can invest in the savings accounts from kindergarten to senior year of high school; the average balance in K2C accounts is around $1,400.
However, only 29% of the current class of high school seniors have claimed their K2C funds. Less than 20% have accessed their CalKIDS money, according to the office of San Francisco Treasurer Jose Cisneros.
“We want to make sure that all students, even the ones with the $50, know about their money and can save it,” Cisneros said.
Cisneros kickstarted K2C – the first universal, automatic Child Savings program in the U.S. – in 2011 with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was then San Francisco’s mayor. The class of 2025 marks the third graduating class of seniors who can claim their funds.
To Cisneros, the money is encouragement for students to view college as attainable and with hope.
“Every time that family makes a deposit, likely they go home and have a conversation with their child,” Cisneros said. “It’s those conversations that build aspirations for college as much, or even more so than the actual money in the account itself.”
The funds can be utilized for any educational purpose, which includes college, vocational schools, apprenticeship programs, and more.
This can be pivotal for underrepresented groups of high school students, composed of Black, Latino, Filipino, Pacific Islander, and Native American students. Closing the college enrollment gap is Cisneros’ main hope with K2C and CalKIDS.
According to the treasurer, the underrepresented group of San Francisco public school students has seen a 12% increase in college attendance since K2C and CalKIDS started, versus 6% for students overall.
“That shrank the gap between the underrepresented group and the represented group by nearly one third. The research showed that it made a sizable difference, particularly in the kids who needed the help the most,” he said.
Despite constant outreach efforts to make students and their families aware of these funds, the majority of it is unclaimed by the class of 2025, as well as the previous two graduating classes. Currently, there are $18.5 million total savings in K2C.
Previous graduate classes can still access funds until the age of 25, unless participating in national service programs that delay higher education.
Checking eligibility and collecting funds takes only 10 minutes online at k2csf.org and CalKIDS.org.
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