Bound for Success
Team members: Natassia Allen, Brett Bennett, Heather Bruemmer, Joseph Dukes, Elizabeth Gibbes, Richardson LaBruce
Individuals who participate in financial literacy classes during high school overwhelmingly outperform their peers across standard metrics, such as improved credit scores, lower loan delinquency rates, and reduced use of high-interest or predatory loans. For first-generation students and students from low-income families, financial literacy education tends to have an even greater impact on future financial health. A report from the Center for Financial Literacy determined that financial literacy education is most impactful for students in the 11th or 12th grade.
Bound for Success is designed to provide high school students participating in Trident Tech’s “Upward Bound” Program a 1-hour introduction to the major components of financial literacy. The presentation is divided into four major areas of focus with an emphasis on those topics most immediately relevant for those preparing for life after high school: (i) college financing, (ii) budgeting and savings, (iii) credit and borrowing, and (iv) entrepreneurship. Exposing South Carolina’s youth to the building blocks of financial education will equip them with vital life skills necessary for building a more secure future.