Utah's high school students turned in above-average scores in a recent national money management test, but local and national financial literacy advocates say there's still a long way to go to teach kids the ABCs of dollars and cents.
The Utah Jump$tart Coalition announced that Utah students answered 54.5 percent of questions correctly on a survey conducted for the national Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. The not-for-profit organization, based in Washington, D.C., focuses on improving the financial literacy of students in kindergarten through college.
On average, high school students nationwide answered 52.4 percent of the survey's questions correctly. Utah's 54.5 percent is more than 5 percent higher than its average score in a similar survey conducted by the coalition in 2004. The survey tested students' knowledge on a variety of subjects, including methods of saving, inflation, methods of spending, investment tools and strategies and income levels as they relate to various types of work.
"We're pleased to see this progress, although small, in the understanding of our students in Utah," Lynn Rowe, Utah Jump$tart chairman, said in a prepared statement. "They and their teachers are more aware of the need for instruction in this area. There is much more to do."
By subject area, Utah participants answered 59.7 percent of the income questions correctly and 43.8 percent of the money management questions. Students correctly answered 45.4 percent of the survey's questions on saving, and 61.8 percent of the spending questions. When asked about debt, students answered 57.4 percent of the questions correctly.
In comparison the national averages were: 59.2 percent for income, 46.4 percent for money management, 42.6 percent for saving, 56.9 percent for spending and 51.8 percent for debt.
"Although encouraging, these results indicate that, despite the attention now paid to the lack of financial literacy, the problem is not about to resolve itself any time soon," Lewis Mandell, professor of finance and managerial economics at the University of Buffalo School of Management and researcher for the Jump$tart survey, said in a prepared statement.
Rowe attributed part of the improvement in Utah students' test results to a general financial literacy course, which has bee piloted at several Utah high schools for the past two years. That course will be taught statewide beginning in the 2006-07 school year, which should help Utah teens learn some money management basics — which, he said, could help turn around the state's troubling bankruptcy rates and the escalating rate of personal debt.
"We believe education will turn around our bankruptcy rates in our state," Rowe said. "At present, the group most declaring bankruptcy is the 26-to-35-year-old demographic. But, the 18-to-25-year-old group is fast overtaking that group, and that alarms us. We hope that this course, which will be taken by (high school) juniors or seniors, will raise their understanding so they can avoid pitfalls that will send them or their spouse into a serious financial situation."
The class will cover basic goal-setting, personal financial planning, checking, saving, insurance and investment techniques and strategies, as well as basics on the "psychology of spending," Rowe said.
But even that isn't enough, according to the Utah coalition.
"This course will help those who take it," Rowe said. "However, college underclassmen and young people — in grades 5 through 9 — should receive instruction as well, and we should be looking for opportunities and ways to teach this subject to these students, wherever and however we can."
E-mail: jnii@desnews.com