In the name of education.

• Author: Deitsch, Mimi
• Position: Economics Challenge 1991 program of the Financial Executives Institute - From FEI

Prices are rising at 15 percent a year, unemployment is at 4.2 percent, inventories have fallen to a 10-year low, and back orders are rising rapidly.

Sound fiscal policy would call for:

1. An across-the-board tax cut?

2. Sizable increases in transfer payments?

3. A major tax increase?

4. A sizable cut in government spending?

5. Either c or d?

If you're having trouble coming up with the answer, can you imagine how junior and senior high school students would respond? The question is from one of two multiple-choice tests given to 99 Minnesotan ninth- through twelfth-graders as part of Economics Challenge 1991. The Challenge is an educational program sponsored by FEI's Twin Cities Chapter in conjunction with the Center for Economic Education at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

"We wanted to do something beyond giving scholarships," says Dr. James H. Filkins, professor of finance at the University and a director of the Twin Cities Chapter. "Accounting and finance majors already know what they want as a career. By giving them scholarships, we haven't influenced anyone. We want to get into the secondary schools, where we'll make a difference."

The Twin Cities Chapter began partial sponsorship of the event in 1990, the first year of the University's Challenge, when it contributed $800 toward cash prizes and Economics Challenge tee-shirts. ("We made sure the Center added FEI's name to the shirts!" reports Filkins.)

When the 300-member chapter was convinced the program is worthwhile, the group decided to commit the entire sponsorship fee-$3,000-in 1991. And Twin Cities has budgeted another $3,000 for 1992, as part of the $12,000 it reserves annually for education projects.

The objective of the Economics Challenge is twofold: to get students excited about a career in business and to educate their teachers in how business works in the real world. "So many people out there simply do not understand the economics of the system," laments Filkins. But he has hope. According to the professor, teachers from one school participating in the 1991 Challenge went back to their school board and recommended that the school system add a course in economics to the secondary-school curriculum. "That's the kind of thing that makes our involvement worthwhile," he says.

In 1991, Filkins and three other members of the Twin Cities Chapter volunteered their time for the Economics Challenge. They were Heino A. P. Beckmann, MBA director at the University of St. Thomas...