A partnership with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall
of Fame and USA TODAY to improve financial literacy among
high school students beginning in Massachusetts, and expanding
nationwide over the next few years. Our organizations combine
efforts to create a financial education program to help empower
high school students to better manage their personal finances
and teach them the fundamentals of debt and credit management.
This is a 16-week program that introduces young adults to
the basics of credit, the importance of saving money and
budgeting. The program will begin in the Northeast with the
start of the 2004-2005 school year in September, with plans
to aggressively expand to new regions by the spring of 2005.
Estimates are that the program will reach over 360,000 high
school students nationwide by 2007. The Naismith Memorial
Basketball Hall of Fame will provide unique incentives to
the students for their participation in the program, including
special financial literacy “rallies,” tickets
to NBA and WNBA games, field trips to the Hall of Fame and
appearances by Basketball Hall of Famers speaking on the
importance of financial planning. Also, our educational materials
will be available via the USA TODAY education website (www.education.usatoday.com)
to teachers throughout the country, as part of its Newspapers
in Education Program, already reaching over 30,000 classrooms
a day.
The Debt accumulated by today’s youth forces students to
work more, reduces their academic load, and even causes a significant
number to drop out of school. Our Young Adult curriculum, “Learn
Now or Pay Later,” educates high school and college students
about the fundamentals of credit, debt and personal finance.
The goal of this curriculum is to empower young adults with the
knowledge necessary to create a strong financial foundation.
This will allow them to foster the financial skills necessary
to succeed in life.
The need for financial education for college students
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83%
of undergraduate students have at least one credit
card; a 24% increase since 1998.
-
21%
of undergraduates who have cards, have high-level balances
between $3,000 and $7,000; a 61% increase over the
2000 population.
-
Median
credit card balance is $1,770; a 43% increase above
the median in 2000.
-
Graduating
students have an average of $20,402 in combined education
loan and credit card balances.
-
Students
double their average credit card debt - and triple
the number of credit cards in their wallets - from
the time they arrive on campus until graduation.
-
Bankruptcies
for those under age 25 have increased 51 percent from
1991 to 1999, according to a recent study from the
General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of
Congress. The GAO estimates those under age 25 now
account for 6.9 percent of all bankruptcies.
-
"Forty-five
percent of college students are in credit card debt,
with an average balance of $3,066, "said Tom Gallagher,
head of the Florida Department of Financial Services."
-
Undergraduate
students carry an average of three credit cards. "More
students drop out of school because of credit card
debt than because of bad grades," he said. "That
really concerns me."
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