National Council for Financial Literacy
National Council of Financial Literacy for Students and Consumers
National Council of Financial Literacy for Consumers and Senior Citizens
StudentFinancialEducation.org (nonprofit 501 (c) (3))
If you are falling behind in your mortgage – Do not become a victim of a SCAM
FREE HELP is available – Please call your local HUD office or
call Homeownership Preservation Foundation 1 888 995 HOPE (4673) for more information
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NOTABLE STUDIES ABOUT FINANCIAL LITERACY
52% of teens are eager to learn more about money management, but only 14% have taken a class on the topic
- 35% would like to learn from their parents. When asked about the topics they'd most like to learn about, teens express interest in how financing works for large purchases such as a car or a home (74%), investing money (72%), identity theft and how to protect themselves (68%), saving money (62%), budgeting (58%), stocks (58%), checking accounts (55%) and credit cards (55%).
Only 48% of parents have discussed the importance of needs versus wants and more than one-third (36%) have not discussed
back to school finances at all with their teens,
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[Capital One, Capital One's Annual Back to School Survey Finds More Teens Eager To Learn About Money, Yet Parents Continue to
Overlook Simple Opportunities to Talk Dollars and Cents, July 2007,
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=70667&p=irol-newsArticle_print&ID=1026172&highlight]
Only 5% of adults learned about the vital life skill of money management in elementary or high school.
[Visa, Visa Back-To-School Survey Finds That Only 5% of Kids Learn Vital Life Skill of Money Management in Class, August 2007, http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/presscenter/releases/081307.php]
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The majority of teachers - 8 in 10 - think it is important to teach financial literacy in
Only about half of K-12 teachers, however, say they do teach some form of “Financial Literacy” to their students.
The lack of time, lack of state curriculum requirements and lack of demand are the top three challenges to teaching
financial literacy topics according to teachers.
About one-third of K-12 teachers think their state has standards related to financial literacy, but nearly three-quarters believe their state should have academic standards for this subject.
According to teachers, financial literacy skills are lacking among young people in the
students need to be exposed to the basic financial skills they will need to function in society.
Balancing checkbooks, managing credit, making intelligent economic decisions and staying out of debt are all topics teachers mention as being important to teach students before they go out into the “real world.”
[Networks Financial Institute at
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A recent survey by Sallie Mae found that more than half of college students accumulated more than $5,000 in credit card debt while in school. Of the 13,000 respondents, one-third piled on more than $10,000 in credit card debt while in school.
Only 19 percent said they did not acquire any credit card debt while in school.
[Sallie Mae, Sallie Mae launches new ‘Be Debt Smart’ campaign to educate students, parents and graduates on managing debt and
understanding credit, January 2007, http://www.salliemae.com/about/news_info/newsreleases/021407_bedebtsmart.htm]
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Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Americans acknowledge they don’t save enough, and more than a third say that they often (11%) or sometimes (25%) spend more than they can afford.
More than one-in-three (36%) Americans also say that they have at some point in their lives felt their financial situation was out of control.
The U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis has estimated that, since April of 2005, the American public
has been spending more money than it has earned after taxes—an unprecedented development in the past half century.
[Pew Research Center
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/325/we-try-hard-we-fall-short-americans-assess-their-saving-habits]
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70% of parents saving for their child's college education confessed they were not using a 529 college savings plan.
Many parents seem not to know, or fully appreciate, the significant tax benefits 529 plans offer.
More than 40% of parents participating in the survey admitted that they have not started saving because they believe they need a
large sum to get off to the right start.
21% of parents have put off saving for college because they are focused solely on saving for retirement.
Of this group, a quarter eschews education saving plans with the hope that their child may receive a scholarship.
[The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., Scaling the Steep Slope of Saving for College, Save Smarter, Says The Hartford,
Releasing Results from New Survey, June 2007, http://ir.thehartford.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=265797]
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54% had less than $5,000 saved toward college, and that 38% expected to be paying off college-related debt over more than 10 years. 79% would be highly disappointed if their child could not afford to go to college.
[College Savings Foundation, CSF Survey Finds Families with Too Much College Debt, Too Little Savings, September 2007,
http://www.savingforcollege.com/529_news/?page=plan_news&plan_news_id=856,
http://www.collegesavingsfoundation.org/pdf/CollegeSurveyV8.pdf]
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Less than half of Future Savers (40%) intend on using a 529 plan.
56% of Future Savers claim that they could "not explain a 529 plan at all to a colleague or a friend."
[OFI Private Investments, Savings Failure:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS171852+20-Feb-2008+BW20080220,
https://www.oppenheimerfunds.com/digitalAssets/0f1414fb23d18110VgnVCM200000e92311ac____-0.pdf]
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American teens confidently predict a future in which, based on the career that interests them most, they will be earning an average annual salary of $145,500 (boys expect $173,000 vs. girls, $114,200 in annual income).
Most (88%) want and expect (86%) their parents to stop supporting them before age 25.
Nearly two thirds (62%) of American teens ages 13-18 believe they are prepared to deal with the adult financial world after high school, and a similar majority (63%) say they are knowledgeable about money management, including budgeting, saving and investing.
However fewer than half consider themselves knowledgeable about how to budget money (41%), how to pay bills (34%), how credit card interest and fees
work (26%), or whether a check cashing service is good to use (24%). Not surprisingly, even fewer teens know how income taxes work (14 percent) or what a 401(k) plan is (13%).
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/schwab/index.jsp?epicontent=GENERIC&newsId=20070920006167&ndmHsc=v2 Nearly one-third (32%) of college students, when thinking about their freshman year, admit that they were "not at all" or "not very well prepared" for managing their money on campus. Only one in five (20%) students claims to have been "very well prepared" for managing their money on campus. Three-quarters (75%) admit to having made mistakes with their money when they arrived on campus, and the biggest mistakes were overspending on food (21%), entertainment (19%) and putting too many purchases on their credit card (16%). When asked how closely they tracked where their money was being spent, nearly two in five (39%) claim they had tracked their spending "very closely" while fewer (14%) say they tracked their spending "not at all closely" or "not very closely." ******************************************************************************************************************* http://www.ncrw.org/ncrwbigfive/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/subprime-mortgages.pdf ] ******************************************************************************************************************* The activities of the “Council” focus on a proprietary delivery system that compliments the existing "in school" or community group instruction. Basic financial concepts are reviewed that prepare the participant for “real life” situations. In addition to budgeting, savings and retirement concepts,
[Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., Optimistic Teens May Need Financial Reality Check, Schwab Survey Shows, March 2007,
*A1167656400000*B1206263677000*C1199192399000*DgroupByDate*J2*N1002458&newsLang=en&beanID=1186282858&viewID=news_view]
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[KeyBank and Harris Interactive, One-Third of College Upperclassmen Admit Being Financially Unprepared as Freshmen, August 2006,
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1108]
WOMEN were more likely to be steered towards a sub-prime mortgage, eventhough they may have qualified for a prime mortgage.
Women were given sub-prime mortgage at a higher rate than men.
[NCRW Big Five: Women, Homeownership, and Sub-Prime Mortgages-A need for Fair Lending Practices,
Fraud Target: Senior Citizens
The threat to seniors is growing…and changing. Baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are now the largest segment
of our population—about 78 million people. That means that the number of senior citizens is rising. Many younger boomers
also have considerable computer skills, so criminals are modifying their targeting techniques—using not only traditional telephone calls and mass mailings but also online scams like phishing and e-mail spamming. [FBIwebsite http://www.fbi.gov/page2/april08/senior_fraud041008.html]
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Our sessions reinforce existing material and can be customized accordingly.
the following topics will be reviewed; the importance and analysis of credit history and credit reports, understanding terms of personal loan agreements, understanding of vehicle purchases, review of credit card terms and “traps”, discussion of mortgage products, responsibility of lease agreements, Fraud prevention, identity theft, basic insurance concepts for vehicle, life, disability and health insurance
Impartiality and no commercial agenda
The Council welcomes the opportunity to serve all individuals, no matter what their nationality, age, race, religious beliefs, social or economic class or political beliefs.
The Council will educate and act independently of any commercial interest.
