Helping high school kids become financially educated...

Since this credit crisis, I have thought what we need is more education regarding financial matters. We, at the Manders Group, have decided that we would like to help high school kids in our area, state and region become more financially educated. We are donating a $200 scholarship to the "Secure Student" for any parent with a high school child that would like to enroll in this program. I have become very active in the Financial Education community and feel that this is a way to give back. Read about the program below and e-mail me(e-mail address on the right side of this page) so I can give you the code for the $200 discount...

Here is a recent blog at the "Frugal Dad..."

The following guest post is from Mike Young, Founder and CEO of The S.E.C.U.R.E. ^TM student program.  You can learn more about Mike, and the The S.E.C.U.R.E.^TM student program at his website.

The media today is focused on the $700 Billion bailout on Wall Street and the credit crunch.  However, what has become very clear in the eyes of many is that the real problem is with the foundation of our educational system.

Remember all of the neat stuff you learned in high school about credit and money?  If you are like me, you don't, because there was no education on how credit and money actually worked.  The average kid today will see over 360,000 advertisements before the age of 18 while receiving less than 10 hours of formal education on financial literacy.

CNBC reported that the real problem with the adult population today, is they were never taught this stuff in school.  This leads us to an entire generation of consumers with a -2% savings rate.  The average American has less than $3800 in savings and an average credit card balance of $9,200!

Marketing and advertising has been working full steam ahead since the 1950's and it's about time that our educational system begins to make sweeping changes to help high school kids develop positive habits with credit and money before they leave home.

It's time for our society to begin making an impact on the next generation, teaching them lessons we've learned the hard way.  It's time to make a difference and consume less while saving more.  We can turn this ship around, but it's going to take a group effort at the community level and begin getting involved now.

Frugal Dad's Thoughts:  I couldn't agree more with Mike's message, and his organization's mission.  As a society, we do a poor job at preparing our youth to take the next step to become fiscally responsible citizens.  Think about it-we spend countless hours of instruction preparing students for fitness through health classes, gym and physical education.  We spend many more hours teaching students proper grammar, in both English and foreign languages.  Rather than teaching them how to take tests, or prepare for college, perhaps we should focus our efforts on preparing students for life.  Some basic courses in personal finance including lessons such as how to balance a checkbook, how to manage credit, how taxes work, etc. would go a long way towards creating a better prepared group of high school graduates.

Post from: Frugal Dad