Students are among the most effective drivers of change in their own schools. You can play an important role in bringing financial education to your school–or increasing and improving it–to help better prepare you and your classmates for life after graduation.
Ready? Let’s get started:
First, check your school!
- Use our tool to see whether the effective financial education is listed as being offered at your current, future, and/or past schools.
- Or, check at your school—ask teachers or administrators if money management is included in the curriculum.
- If you already know the status of financial education at your school, skip on down to the next step.
Share the Intel
- After checking with your school to see if personal finance is already being taught, tell us what you found out using our “Add Your School” page. The information you provide helps the next person who comes along and provides us with a great lead for follow up with your school.
- If your school doesn’t offer financial education yet, that’s still valuable information. So please report back either way.
Toot Your School’s Horn
- If your school already offers effective financial education, our Check Your School tool will help you thank and congratulate them for their place on the cutting edge!
- Share with your friends on social media, and ask them whether their school is giving them the money management skills they need.
Know some adults interested in promoting financial education? You can direct them to our Advocacy Toolkit to find ideas and resources.
Refer teachers, aides, and administrators to our Implementation Toolkit, where they, too, will find resources to help them get started.
Start the Conversation
If your school doesn’t offer financial education or if what is offered could use a boost, you can play a critical role in helping us start the conversation about the importance of financial literacy and the need for financial education in school. How?
- Express an interest in learning money managements skills to your current teachers. The topic is often taught by economics, consumer science, mathematics, or social studies teachers, but can be incorporated into almost any topic.
- Bring it up as a project during student organization meetings (Key Club, Future Business Leaders of America, etc.). Bringing financial education to your school or other local schools is a fantastic community service—and looks great on college applications!
- Ask your parents to reach out to the teachers, aides, and administrators they know or suggest adding financial education during parent-teacher conferences. They can find resources and ideas in our Advocacy Toolkit.
- Is your parent (or that of a friend) involved in a PTA or PTO organization? Talk to them about the importance of financial education and direct them to the Advocacy Toolkit to help them communicate with school officials.
Take Up the Cause
- The more students and parents a school hears from, the more likely your voices will be heard. So ask your friends and students in extracurricular activities (band mates, club members, honor roll, etc.) to help you amplify the message.
- Consider using hooks like “National Financial Literacy Month” (April) or create your own “financial education awareness week” to coordinate student, organization, and parental outreach to the school.
- Encourage family and friends at other schools to use our Check Your School tool, too.
