New Financial Education Team at foundry10

By Kat Chen, foundry researcher

Learning to manage finances is a valuable skill. Young adults who know how to budget, save, file taxes, invest, and plan for major purchases may have a significant advantage over those who don’t.

Financial education is particularly important for young people from different socioeconomic backgrounds: research indicates that in districts that have financial education requirements, students exhibit more informed behavior around college financing, especially those from lower-income families. In districts without requirements, there is a 15-point gap in access to financial education between kids from lower-income versus wealthier families.

Despite increased attention on financial literacy education, there is still a lack of research about how young people view and manage their finances during adolescence and young adulthood. To start closing this gap in our knowledge, foundry10 researchers Jennifer Rubin, Lisa Castaneda, Allie Tung, CaraLee Howe, Kat Chen and staff Julie Forcum, Callie Bishop and Heidi Clary are currently looking at how young people think about, behave, and learn about money.

The team interviewed and surveyed high schoolers and college students on their attitudes around personal finance, their financial knowledge, how they spend and save money, what types of information they received about finance in school, and what financial topics they think are interesting and useful.

READ: Financial Knowledge and Attitudes Survey

Additionally, we are curious about the kinds of financial information youth learn from the people around them, who they talk to about money matters, and what financial barriers they face. Since COVID-19 has affected many people, we asked if the pandemic has changed the way that young people think about finances and if they feel any increased anxiety about money in these uncertain times.

This study is just the first step that foundry10 is taking to better equip youth with the financial knowledge and tools that they need to be successful in today’s world.

In our future research, we aim to examine relationships between educational opportunities, knowledge, and attitudes. For example:

• Does receiving financial education in high school predict greater financial literacy?
• Does parental communication around finances predict decreased financial anxiety?
• Do young people’s attitudes toward money predict saving habits?

We hope to gain additional clarity around youth’s experiences with personal finance so that we can best support their needs as they transition to young adulthood.

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