Students 〉

Learning Life Skills

“At first, I didn’t think much about saving,” says Ruth Viegas, a high school student in San Antonio, Texas, who attends a school where more than a third of students live below the poverty line. Then she took part in the MassMutual Foundation’s FutureSmart digital course. Based on the belief that financial education is key to economic opportunity, FutureSmart offers free digital financial education to middle- and high-schoolers, covering topics such as budgeting, investing, and paying for college. Now, Ruth is thinking about financial issues both short- and long-term. “I’m already thinking about retirement,” she says. For Ruth and hundreds of thousands of other students who are now FutureSmart, this knowledge is power that will aid them throughout life.

67%
average increase in financial knowledge after completing FutureSmart course 2M
We aspire to reach
2 million students and families by 2020 5,000
students impacted

2017 Education Initiatives

MassMutual shows young people that they’re not alone when it comes to preparing for their financial futures. At the same time, students help us chart courses in emerging disciplines.

Expanding the FutureSmart Platform

One of the keys to success of the FutureSmart program is its practice of engaging with students in ways that resonate with them, whether through an interactive course or a live event in an NBA arena. With this approach in mind, we extended the platform to the devices with which teens spend a significant amount of time: their smartphones. The new FutureSmart mobile app is available for free to anyone – students do not have to be enrolled in the FutureSmart digital course in order to play. Each level of the app introduces players to a new life stage and the financial decisions that accompany it, from budgeting for a back-to-school shopping trip to saving for retirement. The app is available for iPhone or Android in both English and Spanish.

Growing Our Expertise in Data Science

Collaborations with universities are a critical way MassMutual is building capabilities in data science. This year, we launched a partnership with the University of Vermont (UVM) to fund an innovative pilot program within the university’s Vermont Complex Systems Center. The partnership will fund a four-year fellowship for a Ph.D. student working in data science and complex systems; support exploratory questions related to wellness, human behavior, and networks with a team of interdisciplinary faculty. This also enables UVM to hire a Visual Data Artist-in-Residence, who will partner with Complex Systems Center students and faculty and with MassMutual’s data science team to create visualizations that allow people to easily understand and interact with complex data. We are specifically interested in how environmental characteristics such as air pollution affect mortality and longevity over time. The initiative represents the largest single corporate collaboration with the Center since its inception in 2009.

$500,000
to fund data science initiatives at University of Vermont

Bridging the Gap Between College and Careers

Which is better for a budding data scientist: academic training or real-world experience? Our answer is both, which is why we launched the Data Science Development Program, a three-year program that recruits recent college graduates and sponsors their graduate-level coursework while putting them to work on some of MassMutual’s toughest data challenges and projects. Participants enroll in graduate courses at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and other institutions, with coursework supplemented by workshops led by local faculty and in-house training from industry experts. At the same time, program members contribute to multiple MassMutual data projects under the direction of a senior data scientist. Participants also build communication and leadership skills through stakeholder presentations and opportunities to direct independent research efforts.

23
Springfield Public Schools served by
City Connects in 2017–2018

Giving Students Resources They Need to Thrive

With 58 schools, the Springfield Public School district is the second-largest school district in Massachusetts. But three in four students in the district experience poverty, which can be a major obstacle to success. Thanks to a grant from the MassMutual Foundation, the City Connects program will help students stay in school and become career-ready. City Connects coordinates both in- and out-of-school support for students, designed to address the impacts of poverty on a child’s ability to develop, learn, and thrive. Based on successes in other school districts, City Connects estimates that the intervention will boost students’ math and literacy scores, lower absenteeism and dropout rates, and increase the likelihood that students will progress to the next grade.