Assignment 7A - Testing the Hypothesis Part 1

Assignment 7A – Testing the Hypothesis Part 1

Educating Students on Personal Finance Skills

• Opportunity:

• It’s getting harder for students in high school and college to be educated on how to handle their personal finances since classes such as the home economics class are continuing to be removed from school curriculums and parents being a possible unreliable resource for learning such skills.

• The who: High school and college students
• The what: They are less likely to know how to handle their personal finances and make sound financial decisions in the future.
• The why: Schools are not focused on teaching students the practical skill of how to manage finances, and students’ parents may not be reliable resources to learn from.
• Testing the who: The “who” would be more focused on students since they are more likely to not have had a job yet or at least a job that would help sustain them on their own financially. However, the need may not be limited to students as there are adults who have graduated from college and have their own jobs who have not been educated or taught practical personal finance skills. The need becomes more critical as a person gets older and becomes closer to being a permanent part of the workforce. While some high school students may not find personal finances necessary, college students who are looking for jobs and adults who already have jobs may consider the skill crucial to have.
• Testing the what: There are classes in school that have a form of financial education, the obvious ones being the finance classes offered to finance majors in colleges. In this way, financial education, even personal finance education, is limited to a small number of students. In addition, the issue of giving students a financial education could be an issue on a state government level. For example, in the 2018 Survey of the States, in 2018, it was found that only one third of states required a personal finance class in order for high school students to graduate. (https://www.councilforeconed.org/policy-and-advocacy/survey-of-the-states-2/)
• Testing the why: Primarily, schools don’t offer classes that teach students practical daily skills such as managing their own finances, and parents are automatically the next best resources to go to for a student to learn those skills because they’re conveniently close and are managing their own finances already. However, students’ parents may not have had any personal finance education either, or they might not be the best at making financial decisions, making them hesitant to teach their kid how to handle their money. There are online software and mobile apps that help people track their money and spending, but students may not be aware of them because they haven’t been exposed to advertisements or because they haven’t looked for these resources because they don’t have a job yet.
• Interview #1:
• This interview was done with a female undergrad student who never received any formal education about how to manage her personal finances, but she has received advice and tips as well as good frugal habits from her parents. Though she isn’t worried about handling her money now, she is worried about how she will handle money in the future because she has little understanding of how more important things such as taxes, mortgages on a house, and bank loans work, things she believes she will encounter when she gets a job after graduation. After asking her a few questions about them, I learned she has never heard of online software and mobile apps that help keep track of people’s finances and spending. She believes that ultimately, they will help on a day-to-day basis, but she would also like to accommodate that with actual personal finance education either in a class setting or a credited online class that isn’t too expensive to pay for.
• Interview #2:
• This interview was done with a male undergrad student who has not received any formal education on personal finances or tips and advice from his parents on how to handle his money. Just like my first interviewee, he isn’t so worried about how to handle his money now, but he is worried about financial decisions he’ll make in the future. He didn’t know about already existing online software and mobile apps that help people track their finances and spending. He would maybe use them in the future, but he would rather receive an actual education on how to handle his money because he believes the apps are just supplements to the financial knowledge people already own. If he were to receive the education, he would want to receive it in the form of an online class, but he’s not sure if he’d pay for it if it wasn’t free. 
• Interview #3:
• This interview was done with a grad student studying psychology who hasn’t received any formal education concerning personal finances or tips from her parents. She believes that people have trouble with personal finances because it isn’t focused on and school and wonders if someone’s economic status affects their budgeting skills. She is aware of a few mobile apps that keep track of finances and spending, but she doesn’t use them because they require her to connect them to her bank account. She also thinks that the software programs and mobile apps would only be good as a supplement because they only help keep track of your money and not how to really budget. When asked how she would like to learn personal finance skills, she said she would like to do a face-to-face personal consultation or group consultation with someone who will teach her the skills and then have her practice them on her own before coming back and learning a new skill. She thinks that if it were offered as an online video, people may not feel motivated to watch the video on their own since it’s not like a formal appointment like a consultation session. She would only pay for a service like this if it were reasonable, individualized, and she were meeting the person teaching her multiple times.
• Interview #4:

·        This interview was done with a female undergrad student who didn’t receive education on personal finance in school but did used to read books about it and received tips and advice from her parents. She believes that people have trouble handling their money because of their lack of exposure to the concept as children. She did say that she was aware of a few mobile apps that keep track of people’s spending, but she prefers to use programs like Excel to keep track of her expenses. In addition, she believes that they are only a supplement to what she already knows. Unlike my previous interviewees, she prefers to read books and articles on how to handle her finances, and she’d pay for the service if the price was reasonable in her opinion.

• Interview #5:
• This interview was done with a man in his thirties with a job who grew up on a farm that his parents involved him in, especially in terms of finances, so he’s familiar with basic budgeting and also what goes into bigger purchases, such as buying a house or a car. He believes that the reason why people have a hard time handling their personal finances is because they might not be earning more than what is necessary to pay their bills rather than the lack of education. He has tried using apps to help keep track of his money, but because he is so exposed and familiar with finances, he’s felt no need for them in his personal life. He also thinks that they’d only be good as a supplement since what they do is track money and not teach people about personal finance. He suggested the idea of an app that both keeps track of people’s finances and spending while also giving them skills of how to save money and what goes into making big purchases such as buying a house in addition to daily personal finance facts on a daily basis.
• Given your interviews, what do you know about the opportunity that you didn't know before? 
• The interviewees all gave me different forms from which people who are looking to learn about personal finances can learn, two of which are forms I had never thought of before: the group consultation, and the app that keeps track of spending while also giving the user little blurbs of daily knowledge.
• I also learned about another group who may have this need for personal finance education, and this group comprises of people who only earn enough to pay their bills and are unable to save much money if any at all, making it hard for them to go to available outside resources even if they wished to because they may not have the means to pay for said resources.
• Given all of their reasons why they think people have trouble budgeting their money and the forms in which they would be willing to receive their education made me put a lot of thought into what the good or service would be and how this knowledge could be given.
• I was surprised at how casual they were in talking to me about this topic. This shows that this need really does apply to everyone and anyone. Everyone can learn or improve on their budgeting skills and the knowledge they have on finances. I think it also shows that it’s a worry that everyone shares.