New Prosperity Now analysis finds Children’s Savings Accounts reached nearly 8 million children and youth in 2025, up from 313,000 when Prosperity Now began publishing State of the Field reports in 2016.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – As Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) reach historic scale, a new Prosperity Now report finds that the field’s next phase is increasingly focused on helping families claim, understand, contribute to, and use accounts over time.  

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The 2025 Children’s Savings Account State of the Field Report captures a major shift in the field since Prosperity Now began publishing State of the Field reports in 2016. What was once a promising strategy reaching 313,000 children and youth has grown into a national field reaching nearly 8 million by the close of 2025. By the end of 2025, 129 active CSA programs were operating across 42 states and the District of Columbia.

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Among surveyed programs, 57 percent provide benchmark incentives, 35 percent match participant savings, 19 percent offer deposit bonuses, 11 percent offer prize-linked savings incentives, and 11 percent offer enrollment incentives separate from initial seed deposits. Some programs reported incentives tied to financial education, opening personal savings accounts, school engagement, health behaviors, social engagement, and other activities that support children and families, suggesting that programs are using incentives not only to grow account balances, but also to strengthen family engagement over time.

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"Children’s Savings Accounts programs have spent years building the infrastructure, partnerships, and trust needed to reach families and reduce barriers to participation," said Marisa Calderon, President and CEO of Prosperity Now. "As the field continues to grow, the next challenge is making sure families can claim, understand, and use these accounts in ways that support education, career training, and long-term financial stability."

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Drawing on Prosperity Now’s national CSA field-tracking work and survey responses from 39 CSA programs serving more than 6.8 million participants, the report identifies several trends shaping the field:

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• Automatic enrollment continues to drive reach. More than 6.75 million children and youth were served through automatic or opt-out enrollment models, representing 98.5 percent of participants in the surveyed programs. National field-tracking data show the same pattern across the broader field, with 85 percent of all CSA participants enrolled through automatic or opt-out models.

• Large-scale statewide programs continue to account for much of the field’s growth. California’s CalKIDS added more than 660,000 new participants in 2025, while Pennsylvania’s Keystone Scholars program added an estimated 143,000 new accounts, according to program responses to Prosperity Now's survey.

• Account structure matters for scale. Programs using entity-owned 529 accounts served more than 6.75 million participants, or 98.5 percent of participants in surveyed programs with account-type data, underscoring the role of 529 infrastructure in helping CSA programs reach scale.  

• CSA programs continue to reach children from households with low incomes. Among the 23 programs that provided participant demographic information, over 86 percent reported that at least half of their participants were from households with low incomes.

• Programs are using incentives to support engagement. In addition to seed deposits, programs are using benchmark incentives, savings matches, deposit bonuses, enrollment incentives, and prize-linked savings to encourage participation, account growth, and family engagement.  

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The report also shows that CSA programs are evolving alongside a broader youth asset-building landscape.  While education and career training remain central goals for the field, some programs are exploring allowable uses connected to workforce credentials, professional development, entrepreneurship, and homeownership where permitted by account structure and program rules. As the broader landscape evolves, recent federal changes to 529 rules and emerging implementation questions around Section 530A Accounts will be important to monitor in future analyses of the CSA field.

Prosperity Now has tracked, studied, and supported the expansion of child asset-building strategies since the emergence of the CSA field.  Since 2016, Prosperity Now’s State of the Field reports have documented the growth and evolution of CSA programs through landscape analysis, practitioner engagement, and field-building efforts.  

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The 2025 Children’s Savings Account State of the Field Report was developed with research support from Brandeis University and financial support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

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Download the full report HERE.  

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