Tag Archive for "Financial Literacy"
Many seniors will graduate with an average student loans outstanding of $23,000, according to the Project on Student Debt an initiative of the Institute for College Access & Success. Therefore it is of critical importance to ensure your graduate understands how to manage payment so that the amount doesn’t grow to be overwhelming.
Michelle Singletary who writes the Color of Money column for The Washington Post recommends the CliffsNotes book “Graduation Debt: How to Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life” by Reyna Gobel. The book is comprised of twelve chapters that take a graduate from determining just how much is owed through how to manage it by discussing budgeting during different economic scenarios, paying off private debt, living a frugal lifestyle while having fun, managing debt in relationships, and how lenders view a graduate’s debt.
Graduation Debt is available as both a book and a PDF on the CliffsNotes website. The book is also available on Amazon.
If your graduate is light on financial literacy perhaps include this book as part of their graduation gift. Also steer them toward the Project on Student Debt where there are additional resources.
At the Financial Literacy & Education Summit 2010 that occurred on Monday, April 19th, Jennifer Kuperman, Head of Global Corporate Responsibility for Visa said: “Last September, Visa announced at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting that we would build on our initial commitment in 2008 and redouble our efforts to reach 20 million people with financial literacy worldwide by May 1, 2013. Today, I am pleased to announce that we are significantly exceeding our progress toward this goal and have already reached 10 million people with Visa’s financial literacy program.
A major component of our program is Financial Football — or Financial Soccer, as we call it here in the U.S. (Financial Soccer, an on-line game that teaches financial literacy, blogger’s note.) With FIFA World Cup fever building, we thought this was the perfect time to use Visa’s sponsorship of the world’s most popular sport to harness the passion for soccer and turn it toward financial literacy.
So far, Visa has translated the Financial Soccer educational video game in 10 different languages and disseminated it widely — at no cost — in many countries.”
The Summit, in its fourth year, is a collaboration between Visa and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The Summit’s purpose is to raise the awareness of the need for better financial literacy education and therefore create more financially literate citizens.
I had occasion to attend the web cast of the Financial Literacy & Education Summit 2010 that occurred on Monday, April 19th. The Summit, in its fourth year, is a collaboration between Visa and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The Summit’s purpose is to raise the awareness of the need for better financial literacy education and propose new solutions. The Summit marks the kick-off of the Chicago Fed’s annual Money Smart Week (April 17-24) to coincide with April being Financial Literacy Month.
While at the Summit keynote speaker Duncan Niederauer, CEO of NYSE Euronext announced the launch of NYSEMoneySense.com, “a credible resource for basic financial education to help people better understand and manage their personal finances.” This resource is aimed at employees of corporations where employees feel they need more information. It includes a 5-part education program. Let your CFO and HR people know about this resource.
NYSE MoneySense.com also includes the Ultimate Web Guide where many financial literacy resources have been aggregated under one of five categories: earn, spend, save, borrow, and protect making it easier for people to find information on the web. Check it out and let us know what you think!
