Seeding Accounts for Kindergartners and Hoping to Grow College Graduates

New York City is giving every public school kindergartner $100 in a college savings account. Here’s why every penny matters.

Kindergarten often brings a flood of notices about events, school supplies and class photos. But when Vaniqua Hudson-Figueroa’s daughter started at a public school in Queens four years ago, there was one that Ms. Hudson-Figueroa wasn’t expecting: The city had opened a college savings account in her child’s name — and it already had $100 in it.

For Ms. Hudson-Figueroa, the account opens up possibilities she didn’t know she had when she was her daughter’s age.

“When I was a kid, nobody spoke about college,” she said. “There was nothing to talk about.”