Personal Finance Education Lays the Foundation for the Future

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 school’s people can be empowered to be financially fit and achieve a better future. The impact of implementing an engaging, comprehensive personal financial literacy course is both 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. Statistics suggest that even with all of the attention given to financial literacy education over the last 9 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% of students believe income taxes are returned to them, or they don’t have to pay taxes at all

- 59% 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

FitKit Programs are inspired curriculums created by DoughMain Financial Literacy Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to building a better tomorrow by educating people today. These comprehensive 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. Topics include: Income and Careers, Pay, Benefits and Deductions, Taxes, Budgeting, Banking, Savings and Investments, Credit and Insurance.

Young adults want to learn about money and appreciate the tools FitKit gives them. Recently a student in Pennsylvania, named Andrew, felt so empowered by the FitKit materials, he spoke to his local Board of Education about it. He credits the FitKit course that was available to him in high school for preparing him for adulthood. “The course material is well rounded and easy to comprehend. In just five months, I was able to build a foundation in investing, budgeting, debt and taxes.”

Teachers see the ripple effects of financial literacy in families and communities too. While teaching the FitKit to his class, Chris gave his students an assignment that involved speaking to their parents about the family budget. When he received a call of gratitude the next day. “The parents said it was the first time their son ever asked about budgeting and has a new appreciation for how hard they struggle to provide for him.”

Teaching people early in life to understand basic financial concepts helps them take personal responsibility for their futures, it follows that successful stable citizens make for a successful and stable economy, so it’s important for us as parents to ask what our schools are teaching about personal finance?

You can learn more about DoughMain Financial Literacy Foundation by visiting their website at www.DMFinancialLiteracy.org.