According to a 2013 report by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), “Mississippi stood out as the least financially capable state, placing in the bottom five in four out of five measures.”

    “I think that’s unacceptable,” said Mississippi Treasurer Lynn Fitch, who toured the state last week touting a program she established titled TEAM, the Treasurer’s Education About Money initiative, a statewide public, private and non-profit partnership to teach high school students in grades 9-12 how to manage their finances before they graduate.

    “Our students are our workforce and leaders of tomorrow,” Fitch told a group of business leaders at a Tuesday meeting at Citizens National Bank earlier this week. “If we teach them how to manage their own money, they will be better able to manage the finances of the businesses they lead.”

    With funds raised from the private sector, Fitch is proposing to provide high schools with computer based programs that teach students personal finance concepts, such as keeping a checkbook, managing credit card debt and saving for emergencies.

    The computer software, designed by EverFi, has been installed at some 100 pilot schools across the state and utilizes video, animation, 3-D gaming, avatars and social networking to cover topics which include credit scores, insurance, credit cards, taxes, investing, savings, 401Ks and mortgages.

    “Students who completed the lessons showed a 40 percent increase in financial literacy,” Fitch said. “That’s exciting.”

    Ross Collins Career and Technical Center teacher Beth Hill has been using the EverFi program for two years in her business fundamentals and marketing classes.

    Hill teaches nine modules that include savings, banking, interest rates, credit cards, credit scores, financing higher education, renting and owning, taxes and insurance, and consumer fraud and investing. Each module includes different topics.

    Students take a pretest before they start a module to determine their knowledge of the subject. Once they complete the module, they take another test. If a student makes a grade of 70 or higher, he or she moves on to the next module. If they score below 70 they have to review the material again and retake the test.

    Students don’t move to the next module until they reach the minimum score of 70.

    “Every one of my students in my class has completed it for the last two years,” Hill said. “They don’t have a choice.”

    Hill said many of her students are uncomfortable with the material at first but are glad they took the course once it is over.

    “I’ve had students come back and say that is the best thing they have learned while they were here,” Hill said. “It is a really, really good program.”

    Fitch said the biggest challenge has been raising the money needed to implement the program. She estimates it will take between $2 million to $3 million annually to provide the curriculum statewide.

    She said TEAM has raised about 65 to 70 percent of its first-year goal, but the cost is recurring.

    She would eventually like to see financial literacy taught in elementary and middle schools and provided to members of the military and the general workforce.

    “We have to start empowering people with money instead of making them afraid,” Fitch said.

    Fitch is seeking corporate partners and TEAM members to help provide the funds needed to provide all high schools with access to the program. Some banks across the state are already on board, as is the Mississippi Economic Council, the Mississippi Bankers Association and the Mississippi Department of Education.     

    The Mississippi Council for Economic Education has also been tapped to provide training to teachers who implement the coursework.

    Use of the EverFi program in schools is voluntary.

    The problem is national in scope.

    According to the Council for Economic Education, only 17 states in the country require high school students take a personal finance course. Of those, only six states require the class as a graduation requirement.

    Most of the states that do require personal finance education include the coursework in another class, such as economic or civics. Only four states — Missouri, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia — require students to take a stand-alone personal finance course, according to Jump$start.

    “The Great Recession put a spotlight on the dangers of a financially illiterate society, demonstrating the importance of a basic understanding of economic and financial concepts,” Nan J. Morrison, the president and CEO of the Council for Economic Education (CEE), states on the agency’s website. “We’ve got to do a better job of helping our policy makers and educators ensure that students nearing adulthood gain that understanding.”

    According to a 2013 report b y the Champlain College Center for Financial Literacy, Mississippi was among six states that received a failing grade in personal finance education.

    According to the grading system used, an F was reserved for those states where “the state has few requirements, or none at all, for personal finance education in high school.”

    “The statistics are alarming,” Fitch said. “Mississippians, on the average, have over $15,000 in credit card debt and 67 percent of Mississippians have no savings. If you have no savings, you have to go back to your credit card if you have an emergency. So there is no rainy day fund.”

    Fitch said the financial culture in the state needs to change.

    “This is a critical lifeskill,” Fitch said. “If you are going to change where you are in your life status, you have to understand money. You have to become empowered. Unfortunately, people have become afraid of money. I think it is one of those core principals that need to taught.”

    Citizens National Bank President and CEO Archie McDonnell said his employees see people regularly who need help learning the basics of finances.

    He liked what Fitch had to say.

    “If we are going to get out of the cellar, economically and financially so to speak, then we have to do it within the boundaries of the state of Mississippi,” McDonnell said. “We are not going to get help from someone else. We are going to have to pull up our own bootstraps and do it ourselves.”