Money savvy youth: evaluating the effectiveness of financial education for fourth and fifth graders

Choi, Laura; Eng, Tina; Go, Charles G.; Pho, Wilson; Varcoe, Karen

Working Paper

Money savvy youth: evaluating the effectiveness of financial education for fourth and fifth graders

Abstract: While there are studies on the impact of financial education on teens, there is a lack of research on programs targeted at elementary school-aged youth. To address this gap, we evaluated the effectiveness of Money Savvy Youth (MSY), a financial education program for fourth and fifth graders, developed by the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation. MSY training was delivered in the classroom once a week over the course of five weeks during the 2011-2012 school year, and targeted a diverse and primarily low-income student population attending public schools in the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California. Based on pre-test, posttest, and follow-up test analyses, we found that students who participated in the MSY program demonstrated an increase in financial knowledge and self-reported positive financial behaviors.