Child College Savings Accounts

The bill creates the college kickstarter account program (kickstarter program) to provide initial funding (kickstarter funding) for a collegeinvest (authority) college savings account (account) for each child born or adopted in Colorado on or after January 1, 2020, but before January 1, 2040, (eligible child), encourage the parent or parents of each eligible child to claim the kickstarter funding by establishing an account, and, if sufficient funding from gifts, grants, and donations is received, provide a free financial literacy education program for eligible children and their parent or parents and other family members. The authority is required to implement and administer the kickstarter program; except that the state treasurer is required to develop and administer the program component of free financial literacy education. The authority may adopt rules that it deems necessary for the implementation and administration of the kickstarter program. The authority is required to establish and fund a kickstarter program master account (master account) and to provide sufficient annual funding for the master account from money that is otherwise available for its scholarship and matching grant programs to be able to transfer a specified amount of kickstarter funding in the master account to the account of each eligible child. The authority must engage in a robust outreach and marketing program to encourage the parent or parents of each eligible child to claim the eligible child's kickstarter funding by opening an account for the eligible child within 5 years of the eligible child's birth or adoption and must transfer all kickstarter funding claimed from the master account to the eligible child's account. Kickstarter funding is not counted as income or resources of the eligible child or the parent or parents of the eligible child for purposes of determining eligibility or benefit amounts for any state-funded program. The authority must conduct an ongoing summative evaluation to collect summative data to evaluate the kickstarter program's effectiveness over time and must prepare, present to its legislative oversight committees, and conspicuously post on its website an annual written report on the results of the ongoing summative evaluation. The college kickstarter account program fund is created to hold any gifts, grants, and donations obtained, and the authority and the state treasurer may spend money from the fund for the purposes of the kickstarter program. (Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.) Read More