Financial Literacy for DC Students

Welcome back. Education leaders in the district are considering adding a financial literacy requirement for high school students on this week's Women's Wednesday. We're hearing from a local nonprofit spearheading the effort on how this type of course could actually have a generational impact. Financial literacy is great, but without resources and tools, it's never going to help someone. So it's not just the information, but it's coming up with how to get access to those tools and resources to begin saving, to begin, as we do through our TED DC program, to open up pathways to investment programs for young people so that there's a real chance of moving towards having a retirement account. That can grow out of an investment account. And when a young person starts that account in their late teen years or 20, in their 20 something years, the difference is massive in terms of the lifetime positive impact versus we have so, we know so many people, right, who started thinking about retirement in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or even 70s, and have seen real stress and struggle as a result. When young people know Their path and the strategies and the tools and can start to take those steps towards building wealth, especially towards building intergenerational wealth, something we hear so much talk about in terms of the desire to be able to do for myself and do for my kids to have access for funds in the 529, for example. That's something that we teach about. Because then what is also something that... You're referring to is the kids will benefit. They're going to grow up and pass down all of this knowledge. So trickling down to multigenerational and communities that will benefit. 100% and multigenerational and also just within a family when you have an individual or multiple individuals who have really gotten the tools to be able to get it, give themselves advice, but then also give their sister, cousin, mom, aunt, friend, neighbor. Then you really start to see the multiplier effect of these choices. And to see Susan's full conversation, including why taking the one high school class can make a six-figure difference, watch Living Local After Dark on DC News Now tonight at 1130 or online at dcnewsnow.com. Just go to the News tab and scroll down to Women's Wednesday.