The CFPB’s ultimate goal is to get all CSA programs to operate using a standard set of guidelines that can be fairly applied to all programs, regardless of size.
A CSA is a savings account whose proceeds are designated to pay for a student’s higher education after age 18. These accounts are often created by a state or local government or nonprofit organization and are intended to encourage more students to pursue
postsecondary education.
The metrics guide outlines key metrics that CSA programs and administrators can track in order to better understand children's and parents' expectations around postsecondary education.
The common metrics can be grouped into the following categories: program characteristics, participant demographics, savings and assets, program engagement, interim educational outcomes, postsecondary expectations and future orientation, postsecondary
outcomes, and financial capability and well-being. Specifically, the metrics to measure postsecondary education outcomes combine metrics already suggested and used by NCAN.
All stakeholders involved with developing the common metrics were supportive, but most stakeholders saw “significant challenges to implementation,” including:
Variation in programs’ levels of access to data. For example, some programs operate on a school district level, while others operate at the state level.
Differences in program design and operations (e.g., size, program engagement, enrollment strategy, platform type, qualified uses of CSA funds).
Differences in the weight programs give to each of their goals for participants. For example, most programs have an asset-building goal, but other goals include college enrollment, financial capability, parental engagement, child social-emotional
development, etc.
The vast differences in the aforementioned challenges may cause some stakeholders to hesitate to compare their programs to others. However, the consensus was that CSA programs could still collect and report on many of the same metrics.
Lat year, Prosperity Now, a nonprofit focused on expanding economic opportunity, did a field scan of 43 CSA programs, asking about the programs' most commonly tracked metrics. Of the 43 programs, 88% of them tracked
savings participation, closely followed by savings balance (79%) and financial capability or education (52%). Less than half of the surveyed programs tracked the remaining metrics. (The CFPB guide notes that some of the metrics reflect programs that
serve younger children, and therefore do not have data for later outcomes like high school graduation and postsecondary completion.)
As for the stakeholders the CFPB spoke to for these guides, they expressed a wide range of visions for the usefulness of common metrics. There is a desire to utilize metrics to “formally evaluate CSA programs to advance the knowledge and effectiveness
of CSA program interventions.”
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