This story was commissioned by the River City Journalism Fund.
The St. Louis Board of Education voted 5-1 last night to cancel its participation in the College Kids Savings Account program — a signature program for Mayor Tishaura Jones during her time as city treasurer.
The board voted to invoke the 60 days’ notice provision to cancel its memorandum of understanding with the St. Louis treasurer’s office, which has continued to run the program under Jones’ hand-picked successor, Treasurer Adam Layne. The board chose to end its partnership after months of questions about whether College Kids truly helps launch St. Louis Public Schools students on the path toward college or trade school.
Some of the biggest complaints have centered on difficulties parents and grandparents have reported in moving money in College Kids accounts to other college savings vehicles, such as 529 plans — a point that Matt Davis, the board vice president, made during a question-and-answer segment with Layne before the vote.
“And you look at other programs around the country,” Davis says, “and they’re invested in 529s. There’s a much easier way to transfer that money into 529 interest-bearing accounts.”
Layne denied that moving College Kids funds into 529 accounts is difficult. All families have to do is fill out a form provided by the treasurer’s office.
“So I don’t think it’s a complicated process,” Layne said. “It’s one form.”
The board voted without first engaging in public debate. The lone board member to vote “no”on the motion to cancel the MOU was Emily Hubbard. Natalie Vowell, the board’s at-large member, did not attend Tuesday’s meeting.
The school board vote took place three months after the board agreed to “pause” its MOU with the treasurer’s office while district administrators sought answers to questions about College Kids’ oversight and usefulness to district students.
Each year, the treasurer’s office automatically enrolls all the public- and charter-school kindergarten students in St. Louis city — 2,307 College Kids accounts were created in 2022 alone — providing them with savings accounts at Alltru Credit Union and “seeding” each with a $50 deposit. Money for these deposits comes from city parking fees and parking tickets.
College Kids accounts are expected to grow through city-funded incentives and charitable and personal donations. Participants can receive up to $100 in matching deposits and up to $50 for partaking in financial education. Once the student graduates from a public or charter high school in the city, the funds can be withdrawn for college or a trade school.
But does the school board’s vote Tuesday mean the death of College Kids?
Layne said after the vote that he will work to continue the program.
“So it would’ve been a lot easier with district cooperation,” Layne said. “But all we’ll do is do direct outreach to families. We’ll still go to events; the Urban League will still let us go to the fair. So we’ll still just do direct outreach to families. Enroll them that way. But it’s a simple process.”
Antoinette “Toni” Cousins, the board president, told a reporter that the board’s vote Tuesday night did not necessarily mean a permanent end to the school district’s partnership with the treasurer’s office.
“We basically voted to continue the pause,” Cousins said. “The pause is per part of the questions that Vice President Davis asked” pertaining to the treasurer’s office’s plans to make changes to the College Kids program in response to complaints about it.
“It was just like at this point we weren’t getting any adjustments that were needed in regards to that particular program,” she said.
Cousins said the biggest problems with College Kids was lack of evidence showing the program’s positive impact on families taking part in the program.
The other big problem was the lack of control that families enrolled in the program had over their accounts.
“It appears that Treasurer Layne is the one who had the power to oversee these accounts,” Cousins said. “So that’s concerning.”
The school board informally agreed during its meeting September 12 to pause its partnership with the treasurer’s office in large part because of a River City Journalism Fund investigation published by St. Louis Public Radio and the Riverfront Times on June 7. The story showed that only 15 percent of the more than 23,000 eligible students in the district were taking part, that the average account had only grown to $73, and that the accounts are not interest bearing.
Jones set up College Kids while serving as city treasurer in 2015 and the Board of Aldermen approved it in December of that year. College Kids became one of Jones’ signature achievements, touted during her successful 2021 mayoral run.
Mike Fitzgerald can be reached at msfitzgerald2006@gmail.com. For more on the River City Journalism Fund, which provided funding for this project and seeks to support local journalism in St. Louis, please see rcjf.org.
