Working Papers

  • Small Seeds, Big Returns: Delivering Student Grants Through College Savings Accounts (with William Arbour and Fernando Saltiel)

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    We provide the first large-scale evidence on the effects of delivering student grants through college savings accounts. We study the Canada Learning Bond (CLB), a federal program that deposits up to $2,000 into the college savings accounts of children from low-income families, with funds accessible only upon college enrollment. Using administrative microdata and a difference-in-discontinuities design around the date-of-birth eligibility cutoff, we identify the causal effects of CLB eligibility and present four main results. First, half of eligible children receive CLB transfers into a college savings account. Second, CLB eligibility triggers a significant parental saving response, more than doubling the effects on savings relative to the grant transfer alone. Third, CLB eligibility raises bachelor’s degree enrollment by 4.6 percentage points. Fourth, bachelor’s degree enrollment also rises for older siblings who receive no direct grant but whose parents open accounts and save on their behalf. Together, these findings suggest that the design of financial aid matters: delivering grants through savings accounts can generate responses that amplify program impacts beyond the transfer itself.

Publications