Episode 169: Why Financial Literacy Must Start Before High School

Money decisions shape futures long before a first paycheck arrives. I take you inside the fast‑growing world of in‑school banking, new district pilots, and the real question parents ask: Does access to accounts actually build financial literacy, or just familiarity with banks? Drawing on current research and on‑the‑ground examples from New York City and beyond, I unpack what these programs change—higher account ownership, better attitudes, more family money talks—and where they fall short without strong instruction.

I explore what a high‑quality personal finance course must include to matter in a digital economy: banking fundamentals, credit and debt, taxes and paychecks, investing basics, paying for college, insurance, consumer protection, and fraud awareness. Then I zoom out to timing and method. Starting in elementary school pays dividends when math, civics, and social science weave together to cover budgeting, percentages, needs vs. wants, and everyday trade-offs. By high school, students should run real scenarios—reading account terms, comparing fees, and practicing opportunity cost—so they can make clear choices under pressure.

You’ll also hear about a bold pilot that gave students $50 a week on debit cards. Attendance improved, and financial awareness rose at first, even without formal lessons—a sign that real money sparks real learning. Still, results were mixed, reinforcing a simple truth: access accelerates understanding when paired with guidance and safeguards. I close with practical steps for families—co‑research credible sources, build a shared money notebook, use strategy games to rehearse choices, and set weekly budget check‑ins—to turn curiosity into confidence.

If this conversation helps you think differently about how kids learn about money, tap Follow, share it with a parent or educator who cares, and leave a quick review telling me the first money habit you’d teach your child.

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Transcript

Today’s Focus: Teen Financial Literacy

Do In‑School Banks Actually Help

NYC Pilot: Banks Inside Schools

Designing Student‑Friendly Banking

Banking Access Vs Real Literacy

Community Impact And Parent Access

What Financial Literacy Really Means

Start In Elementary School

Skills, Mindsets, And Soft Skills

Integrating Money Lessons With Math

Everyday Decisions And Tradeoffs

Cash Access Experiment: $50 A Week

Mixed Results And Early Signals

Teen Spending Power And Risks

Parents Want Required Courses

Action Steps For Families

Key Takeaways And Closing

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome to another episode of K-12 Public Education Insights, Empowering Parents of Color Podcast. The podcast that converges at the intersection of educational research and parental actions. It's about making the trends, topics, and theories in public education understandable so that you can implement them into practical, actionable strategies that work for your children. My name is Dr. Kim J. Fields, former corporate manager, turned education researcher, and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microaggressions that I faced as an African-American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. This battle-tested experience is what I provide as action steps for you to take. It's like enjoying a bowl of educational research with a sprinkling of motherwit wisdom on top. If you're looking to find out more about the current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, and the action steps you can take to give your children the advantages they need, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 public education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. Give me 30 minutes or less, and I'll provide insights on the latest trends, issues, and topics pertaining to this constantly evolving K-12 public education environment. The push for teenagers to acquire financial literacy skills and how to handle money is gaining momentum. Remember the well-used saying that money doesn't grow on trees? Well, there still seems to be gaps in understanding and knowledge for teenagers as far as how to handle money, how to use money, and how best to understand various financial instruments. In this episode, I discuss whether in-school banking affects students' financial literacy, why financial literacy is a critical 21st century skill, and how these skills can be taught to elementary school students. I also suggest an at-home project that you and your children can work on to increase both their financial literacy understanding and yours. Let's gain some insight on this. The presence of in school banking programs increases the rate that students own bank accounts, improves students' perceptions of banks, and increases indicators of financial socialization. In school banks help improve students' attitudes about banking services and increases the rate that students engage with their parents on financial issues. However, banks in schools do not appear to influence student financial literacy or savings levels. Exposure to banking at school primarily serves as a mechanism to increase students' awareness of financial services and leads to more parent-child interactions related to financial issues. Did you know that most states now require high school students to take personal financial courses? It's true. Some districts are going a step further with their financial education. For example, New York City Mayor Eric Adams in November of last year announced a new pilot program that would involve setting up bank branches at schools, and teenagers will be able to use them to gain hands-on experience managing bank accounts. The pilot involved 15 of the city's roughly 500 high schools and 12 financial institutions, and it would not only introduce in-school banking services to students and their families, but also offer workshops on responsible money management and banking, as well as connecting students with career opportunities in finance. There are evidence-based approaches that districts can follow to ensure students get the most out of an in-school banking initiative. The key is that in-school banking programs need to critically assess the banks and credit unions that are on the school campus to make sure that they are designed for everyday needs of underserved individuals and families. For example, they need to have Laura account fees or no monthly fees on their accounts. They cannot have overdraft fees. They also need to allow access to online bill payments and have no minimum balance requirements. It's also important that the banks and credit unions that participate in these programs have exceptional consumer protections in place. In-school banking programs are excellent opportunities to teach students that their paycheck should be direct deposited into a checking account that's FDIC insured and also teaches these students how to learn the differences between types of accounts and systems. Typically, students are setting up their direct deposit with peer-to-peer payment apps such as Venmo or Cash App. School districts need to keep in mind that in-school banking programs do not replace a comprehensive, 21st century relevant, high-quality personal finance course. Going to a bank and opening an account, but not really knowing what the account means or what the interest rate is or what the terms and conditions are doesn't achieve the core mission of financial literacy. Having the products and services in isolation without the education and resources to understand how it fits into the larger financial plan is missing a lot that students need. Financial literacy courses include discussing banking, credit, taxes, investing, how to pay for college, loans, insurance, consumer protection, and how to manage money effectively in this digital economy. These courses are most effective for high school students, especially before they turn 18. Access to in-school banking affects the broader community. The hours of operation for the banks and credit unions participating in these programs are often flexible enough for parents to conduct their banking business on the school campus. When parents come in for a parent-teacher conference, for example, instead of talking about their child's behavior or just how things are going, they can express gratitude and appreciation to the teachers because they are learning alongside their children about things that help boost credit, different investment accounts, and the dangers of high interest rates. This helps to empower parents by giving them language and knowledge to have the confidence to have the right kinds of conversation in the banking institutions or credit unions. So what I'm really talking about here is financial literacy for students. Financial literacy is the knowledge, the understanding, the skills and confidence to make reasonable financial decisions so as to ensure financial independence and act according to specific circumstances. The national push to teach personal financial skills in school is the result of a growing awareness that most students don't know the basics about money management, which leaves them vulnerable in an increasingly sophisticated world that offers a dizzying array of financial choices. Financial literacy curriculum should begin in elementary school and carry on through middle school and high school. This push for financial literacy for students, which began in the early 2000s, is still quite necessary for today's students. Over 50% of high school seniors lack critical personal finance knowledge. Finance could be considered a complicated subject and it builds on things students may have some inkling of an idea about, yet it takes discipline and hard work to master it. Researchers indicate the one reason students have this abysmal working knowledge of personal finance is that they're not learning about it at home. Most parents don't teach financial literacy at home. Knowing how to manage money effectively, as well as knowing how the free market economic system works is more important now because the national economy is increasingly affected by the global economy. And the number of financial vehicles and tools that average Americans should track and understand has soared. Financial education of elementary school students is considered to be one of the best ways to solve current social issues such as unemployment, income inequality issues like poverty, crime, discrimination, and unequal access to resources. The fact of the matter is that financial literacy should not begin in high school. This 21st century skill should begin with elementary school students. Creating the foundation of financial literacy in elementary school students is the initial stage of the process of reforming society in order to improve the economic culture of citizens in that society, perhaps even promoting a prosperous, happy life. Elementary school students are already aware of the connections between career achievement and hard work, opportunities for success, material prosperity, as well as being taught resilience or how to overcome difficulties in life. Financial competence for elementary school students involves hard skills like learning about the tools of finance, budgeting, savings, etc. It also involves having the motivation and belief to succeed, as well as the soft skills like critical thinking, personal responsibility, self-confidence, empathy, and self-development. One of the ways to implement financial literacy in the school curriculum is to integrate it with related subjects like mathematics, social science, civics education, and economics. The main intersection between mathematics literacy and financial literacy is the content that is assessed by a number of basic arithmetic items that require students to apply knowledge in everyday financial contexts. The basic arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of integers, decimals, and percentages when applied to formulas that solve financial problems does not require algebraic skills. Financial literacy involves two main dimensions, knowledge and attitudes toward managing finances. Knowledge and understanding of financial management will lead to financial attitudes or behaviors like deciding to save money for the long term, planning a household budget, budgeting for insurance, and choosing financial products, just to name a few. Knowledge and attitudes toward managing finances are interrelated. It requires a working knowledge of financials and the right financial attitude. It involves analyzing financial information in various life situations like moving into an apartment, buying a car, buying a house, etc. Evaluating financial issues, and understanding and applying financial knowledge. Financial literacy contains content appropriate to financial activities carried out by high school students, including money in transactions, spending, savings, investing, managing credit, and financial awareness. The use of this knowledge can be applied when students are faced, for example, with buying pizza from a delivery service or visiting a store in person. The students have to learn to make effective decisions according to their needs. Either, in this example, choosing to spend less money but extra time by going into the pizza place, or choosing to spend more money with delivery but being able to complete other work while waiting for that pizza. Here's a bold claim. It's hard to learn how to manage money if you don't have any. When high school students graduate in today's world, they face a world of increasingly complicated financial choices and competing spending priorities. Recently, researchers teamed up with charter schools in New Orleans and Indianapolis to pilot a simple but radical idea. They gave students from predominantly low-income families$50 a week with no strings attached except one. Stay enrolled in school. The goal was to see how the experiment would change students' perceptions of money, how they would spend it, and if it would affect the relationship with school. Well, this is an interesting concept, so let's see what happened. The first results of the study released in July 2025 showed some promise. The 200 students in the test group who had$50 automatically loaded onto a debit card weekly for 40 weeks had improved attendance compared to those in the control group. At least initially, they also grew in understanding of financial concepts. What's interesting about these results is that there was no financial literacy component and no financial education intervention that was administered. It seems that when children are given financial access and means, it causes a cognitive change where they start paying more attention to the financial products around them. The study involved tracking one year of cohorts of students who attended three schools, one charter school in Indianapolis, one charter school in New Orleans, and a public high school, George Washington Carver High School in New Orleans in the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years. Students who volunteered were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups with similar demographics. About half of the 400 students, which comprised the experimental group, received$50 a week. Their peers in the control group received a$10 Amazon gift card every month. The researchers tracked students' transactions, accumulated savings, and academic records, as well as their responses to surveys about self-perception. Money for the experiment came from a grant from the city of New Orleans and from a coalition of unnamed donors. Results from the initial cohorts were mixed. Students in the experimental group missed roughly one fewer day of school on average than their peers in the control group. There was no statistically significant impact on students' grades. Students in the experimental group showed strong growth in the money, knowledge, and choices section of the survey between the fall and spring semesters. But on the final administration of the self-perception survey, the scores of the control group and experimental group were not statistically significant. Transaction data showed students spent about 45% of the money on food and groceries, 35% on retail sales and services, and 12% on transportation. Students also demonstrated some self-control. Among those who maintained money in their accounts, the average balance was$300, which was about 15% of the total money given to them over the course of the school year. Even though the results of the initial study were mixed, researchers hoped to learn more by following larger cohorts of students for a longer term. They also plan to pilot the experiment with 40 students in the District of Columbia. Although teenagers have more spending power now than ever before, this does not mean that they're prepared to spend or save wisely. An estimated 42% of U.S. teams use TikTok shop. 39% rely on credit or debit cards, and 33% use mobile payment apps like Cash App or Apple Pay to make personal purchases, according to 2025 data. For example, about half of the teenagers surveyed by the Wakefield Research Group in a 2025 survey with a nationally representative sample of 1,000 U.S. teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18. These teenagers, about half of them anyway, believed that an interest rate of 18% on debt was quote unquote manageable and can be paid off over time. And when they received money, only about one third of these teenage respondents said they saved some of it for their future, in spite of nearly half of them reporting being terrified. That they would not have enough money to cover their future needs and goals. Their ideas about how to make money aren't necessarily realistic either. Students in this age group all want to know how to get rich quick, and they often think that if they go to college, they will automatically be able to afford the standard of living that their parents have provided for them. They don't usually see the years of work and savings that went in to building up to that standard of living. Some teenagers are increasingly spending money in risky ways. One of the riskier activities they engage in is online gambling. Researchers have found that the rates of gambling among young people in North America is about 33%, especially for those that reported having gambled in the last 12 months. While most states have set the minimum sports gambling age at 21, with some jurisdictions setting the age limit to 18, those restrictions are quite often easy to bypass. From a parent perspective, 88% of adults in a 2022 survey by the National Endowment for Financial Education group agreed that their state should require either a semester or year-long financial education course for high school graduation. Many felt that this was necessary because they may not have a strong grasp of personal finance themselves and would like to see the school teach healthy fiscal habits. By the way, 38% of parents indicated their own family did not sufficiently educate them on investing, and most said that they would have liked to have had a financial education course when they were teenagers. So, what can you do with the information that I just shared? How does it apply to you? Here are the action steps you can take regarding in-school banking and financial literacy for your children. While formal, informal, and non-formal financial education positively impacts students' financial literacy, gaps remain due to limited school education and varying parental guidance. Social media and digital platforms are major financial learning sources for Generation Z, but they also introduce risk of digital financial misconceptions. Students face challenges in financial management such as poor record keeping, inadequate saving, and impulse spending. Misunderstandings about digital transactions along with rising online fraud further complicate financial decisions. Parental involvement is crucial for financial independence, and family well-being is tied to financial stability and communication. It's important to have comprehensive financial conversations that combine formal education, your perspectives and experiences, as well as discussions about digital financial risk awareness to promote responsible financial behaviors for your children, especially among high school students. This might be a great opportunity for you and your children to conduct financial literacy research online by going to reputable sites such as charleswab.com, Barons.com, and The Wall Street Journal.com. You can compare your findings with your children's findings and start to create a notebook of financial literacy, tools, terms, and the types of resources that are available. You can also set aside time to play board games that teach children about money, like Monopoly, the game of life, and cash flow. The website, moneyparents.com, has a list of fifty-three best board games and card games to teach kids money skills at every age. Here are this episode's takeaways. The presence of in-school banking programs increases the rate that students own bank accounts, improves students' perceptions of banks, and increases indicators of financial socialization. In school banks improve students' attitudes about banks and their services, as well as increasing the rate that students engage with their parents on financial issues. However, banks in schools do not appear to influence student financial literacy or savings levels. Exposure to banking at school primarily serves as a mechanism to increase students' awareness of financial services and leads to more parent-child interactions related to financial issues. In school banking programs are excellent opportunities to teach students that their paycheck should be directly deposited into a checking account that's FDIC insured and also teaches them how to learn the differences between the types of accounts and systems. School districts need to keep in mind that in-school banking programs do not replace a comprehensive, 21st century relevant, high-quality personal finance course. Going to a bank and opening an account, but not knowing what the account means or what the interest rate is or what the terms and conditions are doesn't achieve the core mission of financial literacy. Financial literacy is the knowledge, understanding, skills, and confidence to make reasonable financial decisions to ensure financial independence and act according to specific circumstances. Financial literacy courses include discussing banking, credit, taxes, investing, how to pay for college, loans, insurance, consumer protection, and how to manage money effectively in the digital economy. These courses are most effective for high school students, especially before they turn 18. But financial literacy should not just begin in high school. This 21st century skill should start with elementary school students. Creating the foundation of financial literacy in elementary school students is the initial stage of the process of reforming society in order to improve the economic culture of citizens in that society. Elementary school students are already aware of the connections between career achievement and hard work, opportunities for success, material prosperity, and resilience. Financial competence for elementary school students involves hard skills, motivation and belief to succeed, and soft skills like critical thinking, personal responsibility, self-confidence, empathy, and self-development or continuous learning. Thanks for listening today. Be sure to come back for more insights on K-12 educational topics that impact you and your children. And remember to share my podcast with anyone that you think will find valuable. That includes your friends, family, and your community. Until next time, learn something new every day.