Improve your Financial Literacy for Free

There are many websites and program to get a grasp on becoming financially literate. There are options catered towards college students and high school students respectively. Only 57% of Americans are considered “Financially Literate” which is comparable to the country of Botswana (which is far smaller than the US). People between the ages of 18-34 had the sharpest drop in ability to answer financial questions correctly taking a nose-dive from a meager 30% to 17%.

In the United States, only 17 of 50 states require some sort of financial literacy course to graduate. The Finacial Industry, to put it into a ratio, spends $25 on marketing compared to around $1 on education. Furthermore, programs often target schools with a sufficient technological infrastructure to support their websites and programs. However, this leaves many students, especially in underserved areas, without the ability to foster their financial savvy early-on. Finances are of crucial importance in college as many students that drop out, do so for financial reasons.

High School Financial Planning Program

This is a course that is friendly for high school-aged students. It has modules broken up into categories like Money Management, Borrowing, Earning, Investing, Financial Services, and Insurance. It is a flagship initiative by the National Endowment for Financial Education. For teachers, they have printable resources that you can easily share with your students and incorporate into classroom discussion.

Cash Course

This is a course that was suggested to me at my University. It allows for financial “self-study” and includes things that are personalized to you and your identity as a college student. There is a guide to real-life money questions as well as articles and additional resources. It is also a program through the National Endowment for Financial Education.

Smart About Money

It’s a free unbiased resource through the National Endowment for Financial Education. This site is geared towards college and beyond with modules available on topics like retirement, housing and insurance. This site also has several financial articles translated into Spanish.

EdX Courses

You can usually find a course on here based around financial literacy or know-how and the best part is that a lot of them are taught by college professors at reputable universities. They are often self-paced and you can pay for a certificate if you want (although it is absolutely not necessary to purchase certificates for these programs with few exceptions.)

Books

Now not everyone has a lot of leisure time to read books, but if you are able to do try to download some PDFs and read up on finances. Time is money and there’s no better way to spend it then investing in yourself. Check out your local library or browse some websites on the internet. You don’t have to pay copious amounts per book at all- there are a lot of free alternatives that will give you exactly the same information.

YouTube

There are a lot of ways to learn about financial literacy and, of course, there are several YouTubers that focus their platforms on financial literacy. There is no formula to finding the “best” channel for finances because each of them will focus on different ideas and concepts. The best channel for you is the one that you will benefit the most from and that has the most pertinent knowledge for you. Be wary of “ads” and “frauds” and never spend money to get advice that you could get for free.