An Evaluation of the Kansas Child Support Savings Initiative

Abstract

The Kansas Child Support Savings Initiative allows parents who owe child support debt to pay off their debt by matching deposits into a 529 education saving account for their children with dollar-for-dollar debt reduction. Though generous, the program was experiencing low take-up. We conducted two randomized controlled trials to test whether information and transaction costs could be leading to low take-up. The impacts achieved were minimal and largely trivial.