The Lowdown on Financial Literacy Classes for Youth

The topics you present in financial literacy programs for youth viewers should be prioritized based on their relevance to an adolescent’s life stage. In other words, lessons should be practical and give them knowledge they’ll actually be able to use. Following are three choices that meet these criteria.

Vehicle Purchase Workshop: This training will be useful to teens if it covers how to set money goals, pencil in a car as a budget line item, pinpoint all the expenses involved (e.g. fuel, wear and tear, and insurance), and qualify for an auto loan.

Moving Away from Home Seminar: Teens will find this coursework beneficial if it includes applicable guidelines for smart goal-setting, budget creation, car buying, living expenses, and credit card usage.

Fund Your Education Course: If youth are college-bound, they’ll find a course helpful if it discusses a broad scope of funding sources (e.g. grants, scholarships, work income, student loans). You also should cover college ROI, career strategizing, and budgets.

A host of challenges will greet young people once they step out into the real world. All these influences, taken together, will determine how capable they are to handle the financial decisions adults must undertake. Address these influences in a personal finance class for high school teenagers to make the instruction relevant.

First, they’ll be influenced by their families’ financial histories. Youth may want to achieve greater financial security than their parents experienced, but doing so may be difficult if they witnessed unwise money choices their parents made.

Whatever they saw their parents do prompted their own money-handling behaviors to develop. Not only did parents affect how young people deal with money now, but they were exposed to about forty thousand commercial advertisements every year. That equals nearly a million ads over their lifetimes.

The influence of parents and advertising added up to the relationships these kids have formed with the thought of money. Kids’ money-related emotions, attitudes, and beliefs strengthen as they mature. The trick is to guide them to shape positive emotions about finances and build confidence in their own capabilities. That should be a major priority for teaching financial literacy to high school students productively.

The chances that kids have received good-quality financial education at home or in school are slim to none. Research demonstrates that adolescents especially encounter difficulty getting the appropriate financial guidance and support. This age, then, is a good time to step in with financial literacy classes for youth. Such training might include, for example, information about how to set up personal finance management systems like savings, retirement, and checking accounts.

If you want more information about the efficacy of youth financial education programs, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau conducted a review.