Jumpstart the Expansion of Personal Financial Literacy

By Bruce Nofsinger
Every April in Washington, DC, the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy hosts its gala and annual meeting for partners. Part of the partner work includes the Education Committee, and this year much of our discussion concerned the expansion of the National Standards in K-12 Personal Finance.

The National Standards help guide the instruction of personal financial education, as well as the development of many resources aimed at fostering financial literacy … in grades kindergarten through 12. Many advocates (including me) feel that financial literacy efforts should begin prior to kindergarten and expand beyond high school. At the meeting, we determined how best to develop and publicize guidelines for preschool teachers and parents of preschool children, as well as guidelines for college-age adults.

I’m on the task force for the college-age guidelines, so we’re using the standards for high school students as our starting point to figure out what those who are slightly older (but in a whole new world of responsibilities) should know and should be able to do in the world of personal finance.

And speaking of college … Dr. Lew Mandell once again led the effort to survey high school seniors, and this year for the first time, college students took the same survey. He announced the results at the Jump$tart meeting. High school seniors dropped in their scores from 2006 (from a 52% average score of correct answers to 48%). College students, however, had an average score of 62% — not necessarily an average to trumpet, but significantly better than high school students. For more information on the survey, visit Jump$tart’s website.