Junior Achievement Celebrates 90 Years of Financial Literacy Education

In 1919, Theodore Vail (President of AT&T) and Horace Moses (President of Strathmore Paper) raised $250,000 to start an organization for boys and girls activities that would become what we know today as Junior Achievement. In the words of Horace Moses:

"The future of our country depends upon making every individual fully realize the obligations and responsibilities belonging to citizenship. Habits are formed in youth…what we need in this country now … is to teach the growing generations to realize that thrift and economy, coupled with industry, are necessary now as they were in past generations."

Today, Junior Achievement is the largest organization in the world that is dedicated to children's financial literacy and entrepreneurship education. It has programs in 123 countries around the world and reaches 9.3 million students with nearly 300,000 volunteers.

In today's economic environment, many have recognized the need for kids to become financially literate in order to succeed in life. Thus, dozens of new organizations have popped up in recent years with the stated purpose of improving financial literacy. Junior Achievement, however, has been doing exactly this kind of work for ninety years now with impressive success. JA is unique among financial literacy organizations because it has the existing infrastructure to effectively provide free-of-charge educational programs to millions of students worldwide.

In recent years, school demand for JA's free programs has increased significantly. JA's ability to meet these increased demands is limited by the number of available volunteers and by funding. Since the programs are provided at no cost to schools, the actual cost of each program must be fully funded by donations. In tough economic times like these, charitable giving is harder to come by, when by definition, donations are needed the most.

Notwithstanding, Junior Achievement continues to grow and flourish as more and more people are coming to realize the importance of what JA has been doing for nearly a century now. Happy 90th birthday, Junior Achievement!

More information about volunteer opportunitites with Junior Achievement can be obtained at http://www.ja.org/ .


- Craig Everett is a classroom volunteer for Junior Achievement and also serves on the board of directors of Junior Achievement of Greater Lafayette.

Indiana Now Requires Financial Literacy Education for Kids

Effective July 1, 2009, Indiana became the latest state to require that each public school and accredited non-public school incorporate financial literacy education into its curriculum. The law was entitled "Dollars and Sense for Hoosier Children." Section 20-30-5-19 of the Indiana code now mandates that instruction concerning financial responsibility be given in grades six through twelve.

This is a good thing. It is widely understood that the 2008-2009 financial crisis was mainly caused by the subprime mortgage crisis, and many believe that the root cause of the subprime crisis was financial illiteracy. Kids need to learn at a young age how business, economics and finance works. Any steps taken to increase the financial wisdom of the next generation will help ensure that we don't experience a repeat situation of millions of borrowers taking out loans that they had no chance of repaying.

Hopefully, the financial literacy training adopted by schools in Indiana will be a program like the excellent one provided by Junior Achievement (JA). JA has age appropriate financial literacy classroom seminars for the entire grade span mandated by this new law. What I like about JA's program is that it is largely based on a small-business / free enterprise approach, with a lot of hands-on reinforcement of basic financial concepts.

There are other financial literacy curricula out there from other non-profit organizations that are also excellent and age-appropriate. Whatever the state and local school boards decide, it will likely be a step in the right direction to ensure a healthy financial future for our children.

Craig Everett is a financial researcher, an advocate for financial literacy, and a board member of Junior Achievement of Greater Lafayette.