San Francisco Mayor Wants College Accounts for Kindergarteners

The Chronicle writes the college savings program will begin gradually, starting this fall with 1,250 children. Next year, the program is to expand to cover 50% of incoming kindergartners, with full coverage planned for the third year.

Students will get a trust account in their name with $50 from city coffers, or $100 if they qualify for the federal government's free or reduced-price lunch program, city officials said. The plan is to have corporations, nonprofit groups and others offer matching incentives to encourage children and their families to save.

But the paper notes there is the real issue of paying for the program as the city struggles to cope with a historic $483 million budget deficit for the 2010-11 fiscal year. In the first year, the program will cost less than $200,000, and Newsom is expected to include $400,000 in his budget to be submitted next week to the Board of Supervisors to cover the first two years of the program. The cost would increase the following year, though, as the program expands.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, often a Newsom ally, said he had opposed a similar idea several years ago and remains skeptical.

"I doubt now is the right time to create a new general fund entitlement program," Elsbernd told the paper, arguing that the social safety net already faces a funding shortfall. Newsom maintains that it is a relatively small appropriation in a $6.6 billion budget and the morally correct thing to do.