Financial Literacy

Financial education is crucial to helping people improve their quality of life and achieve a brighter future. Discover seeks to improve the financial literacy of the next generation through funding for students ranging from middle school through community college.

One of the most important parts of a young person’s path to a brighter future is their progression from high school into employment. Whichever path a young person takes, a firm understanding of the basics of budgeting and saving is crucial.

Young people might start working a part-time job in their teenage years, or they might buy their first car when they obtain their driver’s license. Perhaps most importantly, they’ll likely start looking into student loans before they graduate from high school. Click here for more information about how Discover supports this process.

Despite so many significant financial decisions coming at an early age, good financial education for young people is hard to find. Consider:

Only 17 states require high schoolers to take a course in financial literacy.¹
Only five states earned an “A” in an analysis of all 50 states’ efforts to teach financial literacy in high school.²
Nearly 70 percent of U.S. parents have some reluctance about discussing financial matters with their kids.³

Pathway to Financial Success

These are among the reasons we launched our Pathway to Financial Success financial education program and why we are building on its success. In 2018-19 we expanded the program by offering financial education and resources to middle- and high-school students, educators, and families through a partnership with Discovery Education. The partnership enables us to expand the program’s reach to more students.The curriculum, Pathway to Financial Success in Schools, draws on Discovery Education’s expertise as the country’s leading provider of digital content and professional development in K-12 education.

In 2019, we achieved a milestone in the Pathway to Financial Success in Schools program when we reached 1 million students. By mid-2019, results from the program indicated that students’ confidence in each topic area rose after completing a related module.

For more information, visit www.pathwaytofinancialsuccess.org.

The program contains 12 self-paced modules within four units:

Being Financially
Responsible

Using Financial
Services

Financing
Your Future

Getting
Paid

The comprehensive financial literacy resources include:

Student videos
Standards-aligned lessons

Family activities
Educator guides
and videos

Teacher Spotlight: Jacqueline Prester

Discovery Education succeeds because of the hard work, passion, and intelligence of teachers. Jacqueline Prester, a popular business and technology teacher at Mansfield High School in Massachusetts, is one of these important educators.

Prester learned financial responsibility in middle school when she worked multiple side jobs. Now, she imparts that acumen to classes that always reach their 28-student capacity. “For years, I’ve been advocating that financial literacy be a requirement in our schools,” says Prester. “Students aren’t necessarily getting financial education at home, so they need to get it at school. They need to get it early, and it needs to be reinforced year after year.”

The videos, interactive modules, and real-world connections available through Pathway to Financial Success in Schools ensure that Prester’s class is exciting and informative. For example, Prester highlights Family Connections, an element of the program that asks students to talk to family members about how to check credit reports, save money, and even choose an insurance plan.

“I’m constantly updating my curriculum,” says Prester.“ And I like that Pathway to Financial Success in Schools is a unit-based curriculum, so it’s very flexible—kind of like plug-and-play… Established teachers can pull what they need from it. Someone establishing a new course could use the whole curriculum.”

Prester’s commitment to educating the next generation about financial literacy extends beyond the classroom—she advocated for a bill promoting financial literacy education in schools in Massachusetts, which passed in 2019. The bill outlines financial literacy standards that cover credit, understanding loans, and paying for college, among other things. She explains: “I contacted every single elected official in Massachusetts multiple times. I met with educators, people from the nonprofit world, from banking, to discuss what’s going on.”

We are proud to support the work of teachers like Jacqueline Prester, without whom brighter futures would be a lot harder to come by for many young people.

Chicago Public Schools Partnership

A core element of Pathway to Financial Success’s initial investment in 2012 was a $1 million grant to Chicago Public Schools (CPS), a school district right in our Illinois backyard, where thousands of our employees live and work.

Seven years later, Discover continues to enjoy a relationship with CPS that extends beyond a financial commitment. In 2018-19, Discover joined a consortium of financial services companies that advise on the system’s Financial Education Program. Discover’s continued investment in CPS also helped lead the district to introduce a graduation requirement regarding financial literacy.

Chicago Public School’s Financial Education Program empowered me to be prepared to teach the students the concepts of banking, money management, credit, insurance, and investing. Meeting with peers during professional development time gives you a perspective and support system. In the classroom, the students are eager to learn and ask questions and are inquisitive when we are reviewing the curriculum. Students now understand the importance of insurance, credit, investing, and budgeting. The Financial Education Program gives the students real-world experience that they will take with them for the rest of their lives.

Miguel Davis, Educator, Gage Park High School

For more than 20 years, Discover has partnered with Junior Achievement (JA) to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy. The program is both an opportunity to educate young people and an important way to engage employees who volunteer on company time to provide supplemental financial education and the principles of entrepreneurship in the classroom. JA is part of an overall curriculum implemented in schools. In 2018-19, hundreds of Discover employees volunteered in classrooms through JA, impacting nearly 8,000 students.

In 2018-19, Discover stepped up our support of JA with a $2 million commitment to update their JA Finance Park curriculum with a new interactive, digital finale to the course. During a full-day program, students participate in a virtual economy where they are required to make important career, business, and financial decisions.

Moneythink’s goal is to dramatically increase the number of first-generation and low-income students graduating with post-secondary degrees with little to no financial burden—empowering those who have been traditionally underserved. We know the importance of teaching students about loans and debt before they get to college, so we partner with Moneythink to provide high school students with financial education coaches. These coaches help students compare and contrast loans to help them make better decisions about what they can afford.

$2 M
support of JA to update the program’s curriculum.

7,800
students taught through Discover classroom volunteers.

Moneythink assists high school seniors who are eligible for Pell Grants, the federal financial aid program that provides grants to low-income students, by accurately predicting students’ federal and state financial aid eligibility. That way, students are armed with realistic affordability estimates up front.

Through a virtual technology-enabled coaching program, Moneythink provides direct, high-touch, personalized college advice and financial guidance to students over the course of 15 months, beginning when they enter 12th grade through their first semester of college. Students receive direct advice and support whenever and wherever they need it along the college matriculation process, whether it’s during Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) completion; college fit and matching; financial aid award letter comparison; or personal financial planning after enrollment. In 2018-19, Moneythink supported more than 1,000 Chicago-area high schoolers in their college decision-making process.

EverFi

EverFi is a digital education service that provides a range of online financial education programs to everyone from kindergartners to retirees. In 2018-19, Discover supported EverFi’s K-12 program in Arizona, Ohio, and Utah. Additionally, in 2019 we partnered with EverFi to bring free financial education to community college students.

College Covered^®

Our website, CollegeCovered.com, provides clear, comprehensible financial information to students, such as advice and tips about college and student loans, helping students and their families plan for a brighter future. In 2018-19, CollegeCovered.com received 1.5 million unique visitors.

Thriving Wallet

Thriving Wallet is a new partnership between Discover and Thrive Global, the behavioral-change technology company, which explores the relationship between finances and whole human well-being. Launched in early 2020, Thriving Wallet offers compelling storytelling to highlight research and new insights to help people achieve brighter futures. The initiative also features “Microsteps”—Thrive’s small, science-backed steps—that individuals can incorporate into their daily lives to help improve their relationships with money.

Through video, editorial, and social content, consumers can find expert advice, inspirational personal stories, and data-driven insights demonstrating how building healthy habits through Thrive’s Microsteps and Discover’s tools, resources, and products can help improve their financial well-being.