Before Trump Accounts, there was SEED OK: How kids were affected
President Donald Trump speaks about the Trump Accounts at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC, on January 28, 2026.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
The soon-to-be-launched Trump Accounts are a new tool for long-term savings and investing for children, but they aren’t the first of their kind.
In 2007, thousands of families in Oklahoma were randomly selected to participate in a statewide college savings initiative. Education, Entrepreneurship, and Saving for Down Payment for Oklahoma Children, also known as SEED ARROW, offers a bird’s eye view of the so-called situation in many ways. child development calculationsor CDAs and their potential.
About half of the newborns who participated in the program received a $1,000 grant that was deposited in Oklahoma. 529 college savings account. The other half did not receive an account or initial deposit.
2021 analysis Test done by Social Development Center St. Louis, who designed and implemented the project in partnership with the Oklahoma State Treasurer’s Office. Research at Washington University in St. Louis found that families with accounts experienced positive outcomes, from asset accumulation to behavioral changes. For example, the study found that children with CDA were more interested in their education, and both the children and their parents had higher educational expectations.
Low-income children particularly benefited, according to the center’s 2021 research summary. The study found that CDA increases the likelihood that financially weak households will save for future college expenses.
“SEED OK is the experiment behind such early wealth-building ideas, including Trump Accounts,” said Jin Huang, co-director of the Center for Social Development. For three decades, “our center has been testing early wealth creation in different projects,” he said. “I think SEED OK provides very strong positive evidence about the potential results we can achieve.”
SEED OK’s first group graduates
Now most of the original group is graduating from high school and deciding what to do next.
“100% of children in the treatment group still retained assets after 18 years,” Huang said. “The total amount of wealth creation is also much, much higher.”
In addition to larger account balances compared to those without startup money, more participants were focused on college, he said.
“When we have an institutional environment that encourages all children and families to accumulate wealth, it changes their mindset, their perspective,” Huang said. he said. “Policy intervention has increased parents’ educational expectations for their children.”
About 40% of students in Oklahoma enroll in college right after high school, Huang said. He estimated that the share in this experiment would be closer to 64%.
Monica Rachelle and her son Hayden.
Courtesy: Monica Rachelle
Monica Rachelle and her son Hayden were selected to participate and receive seed funding. “We found out when we were in the hospital,” she said shortly after giving birth. Rachelle said she didn’t know anything about the program at the time and didn’t have educational goals in mind for her newborn.
In later years, he said, this account constantly reminded him that college was possible.
Rachelle is a single mother and healthcare worker at a local hospital. “It’s a great job, but I don’t make a doctor’s salary,” he said. He took extra shifts and started saving money, he said: “It was a door opening.”
Hayden said he did well in school and found meaningful extracurricular activities. He was accepted to several four-year colleges, including the University of Colorado Boulder, one of his top choices.
“No one in our family has ever earned a bachelor’s degree, and now they’re on track to be the first,” Rachelle said. “I’m incredibly proud of him.”
Maine implemented a similar program more than a decade ago, under which all Maine residents born on or after January 1, 2013, were automatically awarded a prize. $500 grant Alfond Scholarship Foundation into a 529 plan to help pay for college, trade school or other post-secondary education expenses.
With grant money, families were twice as likely to report that they expected their children to go to college, the study found. National College Success Network. Including other states Pennsylvania And CaliforniaThey also tried early investment ventures.
“These serve as a good comparison for things that we know work on the ground and things that we know don’t work,” said Madeline Brown, senior policy associate at the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
For starters, having a dedicated college savings account “changes the way parents view their children,” Brown said. Now “kids are going to college and using those dollars.”
Next: Trump Accounts
In many ways, these programs paved the way for new Trump Accounts. Tax-deferred investment accounts for kids.
“The most important finding we have on wealth creation is that the SEED OK policy experiment is sustainable and scalable,” Huang said.
All parents or guardians with babies born between 2025 and 2028 who open a Trump Account, also known as a 530A account, will receive an initial deposit of $1,000 from the U.S. Treasury Department.
Following the official launch on July 4, parents, guardians, grandparents and others will be able to contribute up to $5,000 per year in after-tax dollars until the year before the beneficiary turns 18.
Susan Dell, co-founder and president of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies and co-chairman of the Invest America Grants Committee, celebrate after ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on March 25, 2026.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Advocates of the Trump administration’s new savings initiative say Trump Accounts could have the same long-term benefits as some government-based programs that came before.
“What we found is that if a child has even that modest amount, they are much more likely to graduate high school, go to college, start a business, raise a family, and be incarcerated,” tech CEO Michael Dell said in a speech on CNBC. Invest in America Forum In April. “It improves the child’s mental health, it improves the parent’s mental health. So we thought that would be great.”
Dell and wife Susan pledge $6.25 billion to raise additional revenue $250 seed deposit For children born between 2016 and 2024 who are not eligible to receive the Treasury’s $1,000 contribution.
When balances are insufficient
TrumpAccounts.gov Projects where accounts can grow to $6,000 by age 18 if no other contributions are made beyond the initial $1,000 Treasury deposit. However, this alone will not be enough to create a significant reduction in future university costs.
After joining SEED OK, Hayden’s initial deposit and Rachelle’s contributions grew to several thousand dollars over the years, but their savings fell short of what they would need to cover college expenses, even at a public institution. Tuition alone for out-of-state students at the University of Colorado Boulder for the upcoming academic year is approximately $46,000. When room, board and books are factored in, the cost rises to $66,500.
Rachelle said they were going to use federal student loans to make up the difference and Hayden was enrolled for the fall semester. “He earned one of only a few places in the program and we couldn’t pass up such a fantastic opportunity,” he said.
