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Learning Financial Responsibility

Why is it important for students to learn financial skills?

Your grandmother may have encouraged you to save for a rainy day, but many young people struggle to make good use of financial resources. A high-caliber education must provide a strong foundation for financial growth so students learn the skills to succeed regardless of their chosen professions.

Personal finance

Our social environment is such that children are inundated by marketing messages from innumerable sources encouraging spending and material accumulation. Without a strong grip on the basics of personal finance and self-discipline, it is easy for those marketing messages to influence a person’s behavior with money — even if that means putting his or her personal finances at risk.

Thus, it is important to equip young people with money management skills that will help build good habits. A study conducted by the Council for Economic Education (CEE) found that “students who have taken a class in personal finance are more likely to engage in financially responsible behaviors such as saving, budgeting, and investing.”

Students of all ages are able to understand a curriculum surrounding personal finance.

Young children can be taught simple dollars and cents, and learn the value of money with exercises like doing chores for allowance or saving up for special toys.

For older children and teenagers, issues such as debt, budgeting, interest, and investments are important concepts for money management. This age group is very responsive to tangible illustrations. While students may balk at the idea of sitting through a lecture on compound interest, a hands-on experiment with allowance money can be remarkably effective.

Fiscal responsibility and civic engagement

Personal finance is important, but financial responsibility means more than just good money management. In fact, it is necessary for students to understand the impact of money on society at large — particularly in relation to the monetary framework in which our society and others rest.

Older students study aspects of the U.S. financial system, such as the federal budget, national debt, and the fiscal policies and challenges facing our country and the world. These lessons are not intended to steer students toward any partisan or ideological conclusions, but rather to help each student understand the intricacies of these issues.

Preparing students for a bright financial future

Teaching about the nature of money, personal finance, and the world’s monetary framework gives each student a solid foundation on which to build his or her future – regardless of the profession he or she chooses to pursue.

With this foundational knowledge at their disposal, students are better equipped to participate in civic engagement in the ways each one deems important. Our hope is that every student will use these skills to create a life of abundance.

 

American Heritage Schools is a leader in private education, academic excellence, and innovation. With two 40 acre campuses, one in Broward County and the other in Palm Beach County, Florida, we serve 4,600 students grades Pre-K 3 through 12. American Heritage Schools was recently named the #1 Private School for academic success with the highest number of National Merit Scholars of all private schools in the nation. For over 55 years, our mission of knowledge, integrity, and compassion through developing the full potential of each child to be an active, intelligent, creative, and contributing member of society. Contact an admissions director for more information or sign up for a campus tour.