Credit Scores: An Article and Short Audio Clip to Supplement Your Lessons
These two resources (audio and an article) caught my attention over the past week as they provide different perspectives on credit scores. The 3 minute audio from Marketplace (below) describes the history of credit scores in the U.S. and how they have evolved over time while the NY Times provides a plain English Q&A on the topic.
Audio from Marketplace (3:28):
A credit score is the calculated probability of how likely you are to pay debts. But it affects where you live, what car you can buy...
What is Your Favorite NGPF Resource? We Asked 12 Educators at NGPF Summer Institute And...
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jul 17, 2017
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Activities, Credit Scores, Activity, Credit Cards, Investing, Stocks, Credit Reports, Generosity, compound interest
here is what they said. Day 1 of our July Summer Institute and we wanted to share with the community the top picks of these outstanding educators. But first, we asked them to explain a few things about this resource. Click on the link listed under Picture of Poster for educator answers to questions about their favorite resource, including:
Why is this your favorite?
What modifications (if any) did you make?
How did the resource work in your classroom?
What other feedback would you like to...
Question: How Are Consumers Looking To Improve Credit Scores?
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jul 17, 2017
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Credit Scores, Activity, Question of the Day, Current Events, Chart of the Week, Activities
A great bell ringer to see how many answers your students come up with before you reveal the answers (memories of the Family Feud).
From US News and World Report survey:
___________
Looking for an engaging credit score activity (#1 on Google when you search for “engaging credit score activity”)?
Here are our two favorites that work well together:
Estimating a FICO Score
Use an online FICO credit score estimator to compare the credit scores of three hypothetical college students...
NGPF FAVORITES: Our Best OFF TO COLLEGE Resources
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jul 07, 2017
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Activities, Credit Scores, Activity, Behavioral Finance, Career, Paying for College, Budgeting, Savings, Student Loans, Stocks, Current Events, Interactive
This month’s NGPF Favorites List comes from Sid Sharma – one of NGPF’s veteran “Power Interns” who has been with us for 3 years. Sadly, we will wish him well as he heads off to college this fall! We wanted Sid to reflect on his NGPF experience (he has literally “touched” every element in the NGPF curriculum) and highlight the resources that have enabled him to become the knowledgeable, action-oriented, process-innovator that he is today!...
Interactive: Auto Insurance Comparison Shopping
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jun 29, 2017
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Insurance, Activity, Research, Current Events, Activities, Parent Conversations, Interactive
Hat tip to Talitha Oliveri for pointing out this auto insurance comparison site (we had been looking for one like this for years that didn’t require setting up an account!!!). Your students are required to enter the following information, which will help them understand the factors that impact insurance rates, and they receive actual quotes from leading insurance companies:
Car information
Type of car
Leased vs. financed
Purpose of vehicle
Miles driven
Anti-theft device (yes/no)
...
Tempted to Play The Powerball Lottery? Try These NGPF Resources To Encourage Student Reflection.
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jun 27, 2017
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Current Events, Activity, Behavioral Finance, Research, Purchase Decisions, Activities
I meant to post this earlier this month after the news of the $448 million Powerball Lottery winner from California:
There is at least one winning ticket for Saturday’s $447.8 million Powerball jackpot, and California Lottery has confirmed that it was purchased in Southern California. The ticket was sold in Sun City in Riverside County, according to the lottery. It is unclear if there are winning tickets in other states. The numbers drawn were 32, 26, 20, 38, 58. The Powerball was 3....
Are You On the Road To Adulthood? Take the Quiz and Find Out...
Hat tip to Jessica for pointing out this NY Times article about this concept that has recently (maybe I’m late at noticing) come into vogue, “adulting:”
Rachel Ginsberg is a clinical psychologist at the NewYork-Presbyterian Youth Anxiety Center, a research and clinical program that brings together experts from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine. She is part of its Launching Emerging Adults Program aimed at teenagers and...
NGPF Recognizes Outstanding Educators Dedicated to Building Financial Capability
As part of a Financial Literacy Month initiative, Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) partnered with DonorsChoose.org to bring engaging, easy-to-implement personal finance resources to classrooms across the nation (see links below for activities completed).
We would like to thank all of the educators who took part in this opportunity for bringing financial education to your students. As you can read here, these 1,200 educators delivered essential financial skills to over 26,000 students (in just 60...
What's the Cost Of Financial Ignorance For Young People? Or Why Personal Finance Should Be Required for Graduation!
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jun 12, 2017
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Checking Accounts, Activity, Question of the Day, Research, WebQuest, Current Events, Activities
Answer: $795 Million ANNUALLY in checking fees
You could buy 2 fidget spinners for EVERY American and still some money left over with that amount that young people pay in banking fees
Here were the two key takeaways based on recent research from NerdWallet (spoiler alert: It’s all about the overdraft fees):
The median bank overdraft fee in the U.S., including university-affiliated accounts, is $35 [3], and the average college student overdraws his or her account 2.2 times per year,...
NGPF's Top 15 Activities, Courtesy of Jessica Endlich
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jun 06, 2017
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Activities, Activity, Budgeting, Personal Finance, Savings, Stocks, Video Resource, Case Study, Interactive
Given the comprehensive nature of our website (full disclosure: Sometimes I forget that we have certain projects/activities/data crunches/blog posts….), teachers often ask us “OK, but what are the best resources that you can recommend?” At that point, we typically turn to Jessica and she always has a few ideas to recommend. So, this month, we asked Jessica to provide us with her “Best of NGPF” specifically for the last days of school.
The responses we got from...
What's The Catch?: Student Loan Forgiveness Or...
By Tim Ranzetta
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May 31, 2017
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Activities, Activity, Paying for College, Student Loans, Advertising, Current Events, Case Study
What if you were a student loan borrower struggling to make your monthly payment and saw this ad pop up on your computer screen one day:
Or maybe this one:
When you called the customer service phone number, you hear assurances like…
“Let me enroll you in a student loan forgiveness program and we will get your monthly payment reduced and even get your loan forgiven.”
“We will get you pre-approved for Federal government programs that will forgive or eliminate your...
Student Loans: You Better Know What You're Signing Up For!
By Tim Ranzetta
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May 24, 2017
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Activities, Activity, Paying for College, WebQuest, Student Loans, Current Events
As your seniors head off to college in the fall, you better arm them with the information they need to succeed financially during and after college. The biggest issue they will deal with in college: Student Loans. They will be required to go through an online “counseling” process which I would describe as “too little, too late” just before their loan is disbursed. I was trying to come up with a fun way (Ok, I might be stretching it here) to get them to review what in...
Interactive: Which Tech Giant Would You Drop?
By Tim Ranzetta
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May 15, 2017
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Interactive, Activity, Personal Finance, Investing, Stocks, Current Events, Chart of the Week, Activities
Here’s a fun and quick interactive from NY Times to get your students thinking about the pervasiveness of technology companies in their lives. Students are forced to rank order the importance of the top five tech companies in their lives by selecting the order by which they would give them up (if forced by an evil monarch:) The five companies: Alphabet (Google is one of their subsidiaries), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft (interesting that three start with the letter...
Writer's Workshop: Write A Letter To A CEO (And Get A Response)
By Tim Ranzetta
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May 09, 2017
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Writing assignment, Activity, Research, Teaching Strategies, Current Events, Article, Activities
A recent Ron Lieber column in NY Times got me thinking about a useful skill that all young people should have: how to advocate for oneself in a manner that people in power will respond to.
Here’s the crux of his column:
Even semiprofessional consumers like me run into our share of problems. These are particularly irksome, since we should probably know better than to find ourselves on the wrong end of a busted product or poorly delivered service. So this week, I’m pleased to share with...
Press Release: Announcing 2017 Next Gen Personal Finance Teacher Innovator Award Winners
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May 01, 2017
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Contest Previous, Activity, Teaching Strategies, Schools In News, Activities
Palo Alto, CA –May 2, 2017 — Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF), a non-profit with a mission to provide a free personal finance education to all young people, is pleased to announce the winners of the Third Annual NGPF Teacher Innovator Award. This award recognizes outstanding teachers who have developed their own projects and activities to engage and educate their students. NGPF received dozens of innovative and creative project submissions from high school and college...
