It sounds bold, innovative, promising and idealistically noble in intent and almost makes me wish to be reborn in the Saintly City. But I’m a strong believer in investing big on the front end of a perennial problem than at an uncertain back end.

I’m talking here about the city’s launch this year of its ambitious College Bound St. Paul program.

One of St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s top budgetary priorities since his election to office two years ago, the so-called Children’s Savings Accounts effort automatically deposits $50 into a Bremer Bank custodial saving accounts for every child born in the city since Jan. 1. The program also extends to new residents age 6 and younger. The primary targets are children from poor and low-income families.

The account balances, according to the city, “grow through bonus deposits provided by the program, such as benchmark bonuses for children and/or their parents completing activities or for accomplishments (e.g., participating in financial coaching or receiving good grades), as well as deposits by families.”

But the primary intended goal is to “foster a college-bound identity in children, in which they see themselves as someone who will go to college.”

And the city has been clear that this effort is not a standalone program.

“The CSA program will be integrated with a set of wrap-around services and supports,” it explains. “These services include financial coaching, financial education, and free tax preparation — all of which will help build families’ financial capability.”

Sounds great.

But I have a few quibbles with this. First off, as a purely financial matter, I still believe the city made an error opening a bank account, which right now offers a paltry return on that $50, rather than opting for a 529 savings account, which yields a far better return over time.

The explanation is that low-income families are better able to navigate a brick-and-mortar bank account than a 529 or other investment plan that might be too complicated for them because the transactions are tied to stock portfolios or conducted mostly online.

I can only speak for myself, but opening and handling 529 accounts is not that hard. The main problem is investment sacrifice and discipline, which research has shown is quite a challenge for families, regardless of economic status.

Unexpected financial hardships such as illnesses, major house and car repairs and other emergencies forced me to not even contribute a dime some years to my two kids’ 529 accounts. I regret that, but it is what it is.

The targeted families behind this College Bound effort, many of whom are paycheck-to-sometimes-no-paycheck-for-a-while households, are one busted engine belt, traffic citation, or late rent or mortgage payment away from having to make tough spending-priority choices that wipe out meager family savings accounts.

No. The public and private money earmarked to fund this program the next three years to cover the roughly 5,000 babies born and 6-and-under new residents annually, along with the wraparound service effort — budgeted now at $3.4 million — is better spent tackling as early as possible the troubling achievement gap between white and non-white students.

And the roots of this gap, credible research has shown, begin not in elementary, middle or at the high school stage, but well before that.

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Bret Stephens: A rare Middle East triumph I reached out to Art Rolnick for his take on the St. Paul college effort. Rolnick, an economist, researcher, early-childhood education crusader and former senior leader at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, did not mince words.

“Politically it sells, sounds good,” said Rolnick, who serves as senior fellow and co-director of the Human Capital Research Collaborative at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

“But let’s define the problem,” he added during a brief chat over the phone last week.

“The state of Minnesota has if not the largest then one of the largest achievement gaps in the country. Kids in poverty and kids of color, the science has shown, start way behind, and when they start way behind, they don’t catch up.”

Research shows that about 80 percent of brain development happens by age 3, and gaps open as early as age 1.

“Suppose the (college-savings account) was $1,000,” Rolnick explained. “If a child starts way behind and drops out of high school, or graduates from high school but is in the bottom of the class, then they are not going to use this money for college anyway.”

Rolnick made quite a name for himself when he and a Federal Reserve colleague years ago analyzed long-term preschool and child care efforts in Michigan and other locales that began decades ago. They determined that investing in high-quality early learning yielded up to $16 in societal benefits for every $1 invested, but only when directed to low-income children. That research, among others, has been mostly vetted and roughly confirmed over time.

That is why Rolnick is more a supporter of a 3K early-childhood program that a multi-agency steering committee is currently looking into than the new college initiative. A byproduct of the measurably successful Minnesota Early Learning Foundation pilot project several years ago, the 3K effort is a joint effort by the city, the county, the public school system and the community to “provide equitable access to affordable, high-quality preschool for all 3- and 4-year-old children” in the city.

The effort, which remains under study, also includes funding to partly cover child care expenses and other services.

Rolnick believes a 3K type plan should be replicated statewide. He is among over 150 prominent education, business and other leaders in the state who are advocating for high-quality preschool funding in a letter sent three months ago to Gov. Tim Walz. The supporters are part of Close Gaps by 5, a non-profit lobbying and advocacy group.

The letter, signed by former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer and attorney Mike Ciresi of tobacco settlement fame, is pushing for state funding to provide early learning scholarships to 35,000 low-income Minnesota children under age 5 “who can’t access quality early learning programs.”

“We’re not doing enough on this issue,” the letter implores. “At the rate of change reflected in the recently enacted state budget, it will be 2087 before those 35,000 children are helped. However, if we invested just 4% of the amount we currently invest in public K-12 education, we could give scholarships to all of Minnesota’s 35,000 left-behind children.”

As Rolnick has noted over the years, investment in such human capital will yield far more of a public and societal benefit than sports stadiums and business ventures that receive tax and other incentives but later go belly up or pull up tent for elsewhere. But it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years.

Politics and the fact that such kids and their families do not represent a strong voting bloc have been the major obstacles to getting bipartisan buy-in to adequately fund such efforts, Rolnick explained.

That resistance will seriously hamper what he and others believe is adequately educating and preparing a good chunk of the state’s future workforce.

“I can tell you that if, say, I give you the option of investing in one business opportunity that will get you a 1 percent return and another that gets you up to an 18 percent return, it’s a no brainer. When these kids succeed, we do so much better. We have a better workforce.”

If I were St. Paul, I would seriously rethink the college effort, as well-intentioned as it sounds, and instead continue banking on the front end.