Valuable lessons: teaching kids about money and credit.
Author | McKimmie, Kathy |
Indiana has the fifth-highest personal bankruptcy rate in the nation. Overuse, abuse and plain old misunderstanding of credit all factor into this abysmal rating. A failing grade of 50 was the average score of school seniors on a national test of personal finance basics, yet 54 percent of college freshmen already have a credit card, jumping to 92 percent by sophomore year. To top it off, the U.S. has the lowest personal savings rate of any major industrialized nation.
To reverse these trends, banks and schools are educating young people about money and credit, and new organizations have sprung up to develop publications, Web sites and programming to help them do it. Through grade school to high school, Indiana's young people will be getting bite-sized doses of learning to help them become financially literate.
Working with schools. Jim Marcuccilli, president and CEO of STAR Financial Bank in Fort Wayne, says STAR works with Junior Achievement and through the Indiana Bankers Association programs to further financial literacy Each of its banking centers is free to choose which of the IBA programs it will become involved with. For example, the Greenfield center choose to make a $300 loan to a grade school class, which bought a retail item, sold it, paid back the loan and donated the profit to charity. "We just appreciate all the school corporations that allow us to become involved," he says. "Any time you can use your career to help educate young people, it's a good thing for the community'
At Centier Bank, with locations throughout northwest Indiana, president and CEO Michael Schrage has always been committed to supporting area schools, says Dian Reyome, community relations coordinator, pointing to his scholarship programs with 18 of them. The commitment went even further, though, when she was hired in June 2004. "My position was created to help partner the bank with the schools. Children need to be taught to save at a very young age," she says. "There are so many credit and financial problems when you get older."
Making learning fun is the key, she says, and activities include money Bingo for third- and fourth-graders and a Jeopardy-style game for older kids. Presentations are made at all grade levels. In fact, one presentation has been made at a preschool, she says, and others in adult-education classes. The IBAs curriculum is used, and the bank also works with Junior Achievement programs.
"I'm hoping to reach 5,000 in the Teach Children to...
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