Should I buy or rent a home? What do I need to budget for groceries, child care, and utilities? How quickly can I pay off my student loans? Eighth graders wrestled with all of those adult questions when they spent a day at Junior Achievement Finance Park.
JA Finance Park is a hands-on simulation in which students make decisions about income, expenses, savings, and credit. It’s part of a focus on financial literacy and college and career readiness that the Middle School is incorporating into lessons for all 8th grade students.
Each student is given an iPad to use for budgeting and a unique personal profile – a construction foreman who is married with two kids, a single teacher paying off student loans, a finance executive with a large family. The students visit mock storefronts, where they learn about everything from home mortgages to car payments to why they would need insurance. At every stop, they make purchases and adjust their budgets. While their experiences were all different, the students came to one nearly unanimous conclusion: everything costs more than they expected!
This is the first year EGRMS students have visited JA Finance Park. Thanks to generous donors, the Foundation has already approved funding for the next two years, as well.
