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Cape Cod Five Co-Hosts High School Competition in Support of Financial Education Legislation

As part of its ongoing Financial Education Initiative, on Friday, May 13th, in support of a bill on Beacon Hill titled “An Act Establishing a Financial Literacy Curriculum” that would mandate the inclusion of financial education concepts in the Massachusetts K-12 math curriculum, The Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, with the Massachusetts Bankers Association (MBA) and four other banks, hosted a competition at the Massachusetts State House called “Common Cents.” The competition included high schools students from Massachusetts and provided an effective and engaging way for the students to gain valuable financial knowledge.

“One out of every three teenagers has a credit card and even more have an ATM card,” said Daniel J. Forte, president of the MBA. “College freshmen have an average debt of $1,500 on personal credit cards, and Americans under the age of 25 are filing for bankruptcy faster than any other age group. We have to better educate our future consumers about finance or they and the country as a whole will struggle.”

This innovative program, featuring radio celebrity Ramiro Torres of JAM’N 94.5 and financial expert Jeffery Fuhrer, executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, included 50 high school students from around the state. Through the sponsorship of Cape Cod Five and the four other banks, the event was videotaped and will be made available to interested schools and teachers statewide as a teaching tool, as well as distributed to local cable access channels so that the general public can benefit from the program. It will also be posted online.

Each sponsoring Bank was able to invite ten students from local high schools to participate in the program. The schools involved in the program included Barnstable High School, Hyannis; Falmouth High School, Falmouth; New Bedford High School, New Bedford; B.M.C. Durfee, Fall River; Danvers High School, Danvers; City on a Hill Charter School, Roxbury; Chicopee Comprehensive High School, Chicopee; and High School of Science and Technology, Springfield.