While money doesn’t buy happiness, understanding finances is key to owning a home, starting a business, raising happy children, and being independent. When people struggle to understand their personal finance, they struggle to achieve, to live and be successful.
By providing personal financial education in high schools and in underserved communities, people can be empowered to be financially fit and achieve a better future. The impact of implementing an engaging, comprehensive personal financial literacy course in high schools is life-changing and inspiring.
Many schools approach meeting the broad standards covered under financial literacy education with offerings that fail to provide a comprehensive focus on the basic skills needed to manage personal finances. Additionally, support for financial literacy education programs offered by the business and financial services sector as solutions often focus on marketing opportunities centered around products offered by those entities, not on the needs of the students.
Statistics suggest that even with all of the attention given to financial literacy education over the last nine years, there continues to be a systemic lack of education and understanding of personal finances and a financial illiteracy epidemic that is currently plaguing our country.
- A third of high school students believe 300 is a good credit score
- Almost 50 percent of students believe income taxes are returned to them, or they don’t have to pay taxes at all
- 63 percent of Americans don’t have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency
- 59 percent of millennial graduates have no idea when their student loans will be paid off
- Average college student loan debt is $37,000
- Average student credit card debt is $4,100.
The Princeton-based DoughMain Financial Literacy Foundation (DMFLF) and Finnovate.io announce their partnership for a one-year pilot of the FitKit, High School Youth Financial Literacy Program to be delivered on Finnovate’s high technology interactive learning management platform.
FitKit Programs are curriculums created by DoughMain Financial Literacy Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to building a better tomorrow by educating people today, in order to forge a “Financially FIT America.” These turn-key personal finance courses are available to schools free-of-charge and empower young adults with the knowledge they need for a lifetime of financial responsibility, growth and prosperity. They teach students the entire spectrum of fiscal topics necessary for success.
The FitKit engages students with the use of video, animation, humor and social collaboration. Unit topics include Income and Careers, Pay, Benefits and Deductions, Taxes, Budgeting, Banking, Savings and Investments, Credit, Insurance and more.
Young adults want to learn about money and appreciate the tools FitKit gives them. Recently a student in Pennsylvania felt so empowered by the FitKit materials, he spoke to his local Board of Education about it. He credited the FitKit course that was available to him in high school for preparing him for adulthood.
Teachers see the ripple effects of financial literacy in families and communities too. While teaching the FitKit to his high school class, one teacher gave his students an assignment that involved speaking to their parents about the family budget. When he got a call from one of the parents the next day, he braced himself for a complaint but instead received a call of gratitude.
The parents said it was the first time their son ever asked about budgeting and has a new appreciation for how hard his parents struggle to provide for him.
DoughMain Financial Literacy Foundation spent the last year exploring high technology learning management systems across the U.S. and Canada, working with educators, school systems, consultants and experts in the field to identify the greatest attributes of a high-quality learning management system. Finnovate.io and co-founder Alfred Yang is that partner.
“We understand the important need for financial literacy education in our schools in both the U.S. and Canada, and the important role that financial literacy plays in making families and communities stronger. As the official education partner for the Toronto District School Board and Financial knowledge organizations we have an in-depth knowledge of what tools educators value, and experience with Financial education. Our partnership symbolizes our ongoing commitment to the work that DoughMain Financial Literacy Foundation is doing,” said Yang, co-founder of Finnovate.io. “This is a great opportunity to work with U.S. and Canadian communities not only by providing learning options through our custom platforms, but also to help support financially responsible decision-making practices.”
DoughMain Financial Literacy Foundation is a non-profit organization that relies on donors and volunteers who share the vision of giving a new generation the tools they need to be financially responsible and prosperous.
