Financial education

The credit union tellers are busy counting money and helping a potential customer open an account. They have to work quickly, though. They still have homework to do.

These bankers are sophomores at Albert Einstein High School in Kensington. Their branch, an office of the Montgomery County Teachers Federal Credit Union, is located in the hallway outside the school cafeteria. Students can make a deposit and learn how to use a debit card — then sit down for pizza and gossip with their friends.

In the end, both the customers and the tellers will learn basic financial literacy, a lesson that hopefully will remain with them for years.

Teenagers are spending more money than ever — some $175 billion last year, according to Chicago-based Teenage Research Unlimited. However, most teens’ grasp of financial concepts has not grown along with their spending power.

About 15 percent of students nationwide graduate with a course in personal finance, says Carol Jarvis, executive director for the Maryland Council for Financial Literacy, an advocacy group aimed at improving economic and financial education in the schools.

Most teens are also not learning about checkbooks, credit cards and interest rates from their parents, Ms. Jarvis says.

“Parents either can’t do it or won’t do it,” she says. “I saw one survey that said parents would rather talk to their kids about sex than about money. The fastest-growing group of bankruptcies is among 18- to 24-year-olds. Kids today have so many ways to get into financial trouble.”

Some schools are working to ensure a grasp of money concepts. The credit union is one of several branches in Montgomery County public high schools. Einstein also has the National Academy of Finance, a school-within-a-school where students are required to take courses in accounting, personal finance, banking and credit, in addition to the regular school curriculum.

Twenty high schools in suburban Maryland, Northern Virginia and the District have academies of finance.

“I’ve learned a lot,” says Sylvia Cheng of Wheaton, a sophomore in Einstein’s Academy of Finance who also works as a lunchtime teller at the credit union. “I can do my own accounting instead of relying on someone else. I’ve saved up about $700 in Chinese New Year gifts. I need to put it in my bank account.”

Adds Cynthia Rivera, another Einstein sophomore: “I’ve learned how to not get ripped off.”

Financial literacy

When it comes to money, teenagers have a lot to learn, says Lewis Mandell, professor of finance at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Mr. Mandell created a financial literacy test for the Washington-based nonprofit JumpStart Coalition for Financial Literacy. More than 4,000 high school seniors nationwide took the survey in 2004.

The average student answered 52 percent of the questions correctly. That’s up from 50 percent in 2002, but there still is a long way to go, Mr. Mandell says.

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