William Elliott, assistant professor of social welfare at Kansas University.

Paying for college — or, if you don’t pay for college, paying off student loan debt later — has been a big topic of conversation in higher ed and the country, on a political and a personal level. University of Kansas researchers working on solutions in the form of Children’s Savings Accounts (or CSAs) are hosting a national symposium on the topic this week.

William Elliott III, KU associate professor of social welfare, is the founding director of the Center on Assets, Education and Inclusion (or AEDI), which is a division of KU’s School of Social Welfare. “The Role of Children’s Savings Accounts in the Economic, Social and Political Context” will bring together leading CSA practitioners, policymakers, advocates and scholars, as well as people whose work in economic mobility, financial aid, financial services or higher education intersects with CSA scholarship, according to an announcement from KU.

I’ve heard Elliott speak about his work before, and I thought his research about how saving for college, the psychology of making some personal investment in it combined with contributions from the government was pretty interesting. Here’s a story we did a while back on Elliott — who himself grew up poor and took a rather winding and debt-ridden road to his degree — and colleague Terri Friedline. A snip:

William Elliott and Terri Friedline,
both assistant professors of social
welfare at KU, are pushing for
something they say would not only open
up the option of college for more
young people and cut down on loan debt
but also spark them to do better in
school: government-created savings
accounts provided to every child at
birth.

For more information on AEDI and this week’s symposium, click here. Michael Sherraden, a leader in “institutional asset building” and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, was scheduled to kick off the conference with a keynote address Wednesday night at The Oread hotel, according to an announcement from KU. In addition to Elliott, Thursday and Friday speakers will include Tom Shapiro, a noted expert on racial wealth inequality; Bob Annibale, global director of Citi Community Development; Ray Boshara of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel; and Friedline, KU assistant professor of social welfare and the AEDI faculty director of financial inclusion.

A few other KU notes:

• Ex-provost inaugurated at Ole Miss: Former KU provost Jeff Vitter will be inaugurated as the 17th chancellor of the University of Mississippi at a ceremony there on Thursday. It looks like he’s taken a little bit of inspiration from KU’s Bold Aspirations with him (that’s KU’s current strategic plan, which Vitter helped develop and which trumpets KU’s mission of “educating leaders, building healthy communities, and making discoveries that change the world”).

According to an Ole Miss announcement, the chancellor’s investiture ceremony is “the centerpiece of a monthslong celebration focused on the inauguration’s theme — selected by Vitter and reflecting an area of deep commitment — ‘The Power of Higher Education to Transform Lives, Communities and World.'” Ole Miss named Vitter its next chancellor on Oct. 29, 2015, and he took office Jan. 1, 2016.

• Black Law Students Association food drive: The group’s annual food drive at the KU School of Law (Green Hall) kicked off this week and continues through Nov. 18. The effort raises food and money for several area charities for the holiday season, Black Law Students president Matthew Scarber said in a note to the newspaper.

The group has a high bar for collecting food. Scarber said last year the group gathered more than 5,500 pounds of nonperishable items for charities in Lawrence and Topeka, and that Just Food said its portion was one of the single largest donations it had ever received.

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• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage here. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.