The lack of educational opportunities generates long-term inequalities in the lives of young people, but low-income families still find it difficult to cope with the cost of educating their children.

How and where to intervene? Since the 1990s, a new idea of intervention, based on encouraging family savings rather than mere income transfers, has gained ground in the United States. And the results have proved more than encouraging: so-called asset building has proved effective in facilitating access to university for girls and boys with low to middle incomes.

But what exactly is asset building? How does it work? UVI reviewed the evaluation studies of the main experiences in the US - Individual Development Accounts (IDA) and Children's Savings Accounts (CSA) - and analysed the first results of the two Italian experiments underway, Percorsi and Will-Educare al futuro.

Vedi anche

Investire nel futuro: potenzialità e sfide dei programmi di risparmio per l'istruzione

Politiche sociali, Fascicolo 2/2025, maggio-agosto