May 01, 2018

In The Trenches: The Impact of Financial Education

Musings from a group of high school students in Michigan about the value of their personal finance course: 
 
Sam: 

We learned a lot about saving money, budgeting, and banking. My classmate Sophia and I are also both involved in DECA, a business organization. We were enjoying what we learned in class and decided to use it as a basis for our Financial Literacy DECA project. We spent lots of time on this project and learning about the importance of financial literacy. Everything we learned paid off and we advanced to nationals. All of the things we learned not only helped us find success in our project but will help us with our finances later in life as well. 
 
Pedro:
 
Incredibly. I am forever grateful. In my culture parents don't talk much about money, nor do they teach their sons how to mange their finances; therefore, my parents haven't taught me much about finances. I have always been really curious , so when I used to live in Mexico I knew a thing or two about personal finance thanks to google, but when I moved to the United States almost everything was different. I knew nothing. I was really worried about it, so I did some research on google about finances in America, but I wasn't sure how much I needed to know. Taking this class gave me invaluable lessons that will be helpful for the rest of my life. Besides, this is one of the few classes in high school that actually is useful. I do not need to know how to solve quadratic equations, but I do need to know how to create a budget. Do you understand what I mean? 
 
Sophia: 
 
It has allowed me to become more interactive with others, and be more informed with teaching peers and those younger. One of the best examples of this, was going to Meadow Brook Elementary and teaching the fellow 4th graders on the basics of saving and the importance it has. My partner and I were able to use our background in finance to teach the kids, and explore an art project that would be someday be useful to them. Teaching those younger students and hearing their own ideas allowed us to incorporate such information in our own DECA project for financial literacy. With our experience through this, we won states and made it to nationals. It has had an impact ever since, showing that learning and sharing can bring success. 
 
Danielle:
 
Personal finance has had an impact in my personal life so much! Especially this year since I'm a senior looking at colleges. Before I came into this class I was pretty sure that I was going to go straight off to an HBCU (historically black college university) but after taking this class for 1 semester I decided that I would be going to a community college for the first two years to save so much money so I wouldn't be in DEBT in the long run. 

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