Twenty-five states now offer dedicated financial education courses to high schoolers, up from just eight in 2020.
02/20/2024 1:45 P.M.
4 minute read
According to a tracker from Next Gen Personal Finance, the availability of standalone personal finance courses for high schoolers has increased from eight states in 2020 to 25 this year, The Hill recently reported. Out of the 25, eight states have fully implemented the financial literacy class, while 17 are in progress.
“All of a sudden, it does seem like states are sitting up and taking notice, and it’s really just happened in the past couple of years,” said Jessica Pelletier, executive director of FitMoney.
Experts say this trend is indicative of a broader acknowledgment of the importance of financial literacy, propelled in part by the challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the pandemic, many households struggled with their finances, and the need for practical, real-world financial knowledge became more apparent.
“I think those two things combined really made parents and educators together become a very cohesive voice for financial literacy, and so legislators are taking notice [of] what they’re hearing from their constituents, that this is what they want,” Pelletier said.
Laura Levine, president and CEO of Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, emphasized that financial literacy has been steadily growing in schools over the past two decades, with periods of economic instability, such as the 2008 recession and the 2020 pandemic, providing additional momentum.
The coalition has had a “National Standards for Personal Finance Education” guide since 1999, covering essential topics like earning income, spending, saving, investing, managing credit, and managing risk.
Levine also noted that in school financial literacy lessons, students are exposed to concepts such as investing, insurance, savings, spending, and budgeting, reflecting a more holistic approach.
Recognizing the limitations of relying on financial education at home, many schools are taking the initiative to provide comprehensive courses, according to the article. This is particularly crucial for students who may not have families or come from less advantaged backgrounds, where parents may not possess adequate knowledge of the financial system.
Activists are not only pushing for more comprehensive financial education, but also for it to start early. The ABA Foundation, for instance, has a program targeting kindergarten through eighth grade, where bankers visit elementary classrooms with presentations and lessons.
“This program is actively being used by close to 1,000 banks at this time, where different unique banks are using our materials to access kids those ages and try to push forward financial literacy, despite the fact that many states still do not have legislation supporting financial literacy in it. So the communities have taken it upon themselves to really step up and help out as much as they can with having bankers go into these classrooms and get these kids on the path to financial understanding,” said Kelsey Havemann, senior manager of the ABA Foundation’s youth financial education program.
ACA Member Involvement
Courtney Reynaud, ACA International 2021/22 president and president of Creditors Bureau USA, shared in a previous article from ACA that she regularly speaks to a class of business students at California State University, Fresno on financial literacy.
Reynaud said she discusses student loans, dos and don’ts of credit in college, smart credit card usage, medical debt credit reporting and other credit reporting trends, identity theft and fraud and how to avoid scams, among other topics.
In a recent Collector magazine article, other ACA members said they use resources from the nonprofit group Junior Achievement to help spread the message of financial literacy.
For example, using the group’s curriculum, Rebecca Roberts-Stewart, chief operating officer at L J Ross Associates, Inc., will go into a local classroom for a six-week, one-hour presentation to help kids learn about wants versus needs, taxes and more. Roberts-Stewart is so passionate about this that she was recently appointed to the board of Junior Achievement of Southeastern Michigan.
“In my daily work, I talk to so many different people who are in desperate times or who aren’t making the best financial choices, and I really wanted to go out into the community and start teaching children some important financial lessons to avoid the pitfalls of accumulating significant credit card debt, ensuring a more financially secure future,” she said.
Financial Literacy Resources
Know My Debt is ACA’s popular consumer education resource. You can include the link to Know My Debt on your agency’s home page and give it to collectors to share with consumers.
When creating a link on your website, ACA recommends calling it Know My Debt: Explaining Consumer Rights and Navigating Debt Solutions.
Visit the Know My Debt website to learn more.
Remember, subscribe to ACA Daily and Member Alerts under your My ACA profile when logged in to acainternational.org to receive updates on the ACA Huddle.