Personal Finance, Financial Literacy, whatever you call it, it’s a popular choice for a high school class. For good reason - we all need to understand how to manage our money! 

There are lots of books out there on this topic but finding a well-developed resource with videos, worksheets and educator information can be tricky. But good news! I have two (free!!) curriculum choices to recommend: Intuit for Education’s Financial Literacy program and The Stock Market Game from the SIFMA foundation. 

The first program, Intuit’s Financial Literacy program, is geared towards high schoolers (maybe upper middle school depending on the student) and actually has two components: personal finance and entrepreneurial finance (which would be great for those business-minded kids out there!). 

I explored the Personal Finance course which  is a thorough and well-developed resource that begins with basic financial literacy terms, moves through topics such as banking, budgeting, investing, paying for college, and insurance (among others), and ends with a short section on economics. The course can be worked through 2 ways: 1) by the student independently; or 2) with the educator leading the discussion and directing the work. The course material consists of a series of videos, short readings, mini-quizzes and short answer reflective questions. These are either presented to the learner directly as they work independently or there are lesson plans to step the educator through the curriculum. 

Of course, there’s the obvious - this program is run by Intuit, it’s a marketing tool for them. However, I did not see explicit marketing materials in the course itself other than the branding on the website. The only hiccup I had in reviewing the program was the sign-up process for homeschoolers. It’s a little wonky to sign-up for an educator account - I ended up sending an approval to myself in order to link my student accounts to my teacher account. It wasn’t a big deal and worked out fine but it’s always good to have a heads-up! Alternatively, students can just sign-up on their own as independent learners and shouldn’t have that problem. 

I did not delve into the Entrepreneurial Finance program but at first glance it appears to be set-up similarly and includes topics such as financial strategies for small businesses, financial planning and analysis, financial management, and business valuation.

The second program is the SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market game. This is an interactive, stock market simulation directed at middle and high school students. It runs multiple times a year and you can play either as an individual or a team, and either independently or compete against other schools and learners in your area and across the country. It’s easy to sign-up and SIFMA does a fantastic job of providing educator training materials (written, recorded, and live sessions) with the information needed to make the most of the program.  There are also fantastic videos for students directly that explain investing concepts, how to research companies and choose stocks, and how to evaluate your portfolio as you go, along with worksheets and discussion guides to deepen the experience. 

Hopefully these recommendations help if you’re looking for resources to tackle financial literacy and if you have any recommendations to add please get in touch!