Community Corner

Connecticut Gets an 'F' on Teaching Financial Literacy

A new report ranks our state at the bottom of the heap in terms of teaching kids how to deal with money.

Connecticut has gotten an 'F' in a new report on how well states are educating high school students in financial literacy. 

Champlain College's Center for Financial Literacy, which has issued its report card on financial literacy for the last 14 years, ranked Connecticut at the bottom of the heap its newest report.

Other states that also got an 'F' in the State of Financial Literacy report were Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Rhode Island and Washington. 

The college each year issues grades on how well each state's high schools are doing in terms of teaching students real-world lessons on how to deal with money.

"We would not allow a young person to get in the driver's seat of a car without requiring drivers education, and yet we allow our youth to enter the complex financial world often without any related education," the report states. "An uneducated individual armed with a credit card, a student loan and access to a mortgage can be nearly as dangerous to themselves and their community as a person with no training behind the wheel of a car."

"States at a minimum should require personal finance topics be taught as part of another required course," says John Pelletier, the report's director. "A stand alone high school course is often difficult to achieve. We were only able to give 40 percent of states grades that you would want your children to bring home from school-grades A or B." 

State's that got an 'A' in the college report were Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

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