“Students need to be familiar with managing their finances, preferably by the start of middle school,” said Mr. Morin, an advocate for the Summer Finance Academy, which is run out of Duke University, stressing the necessity of learning financial knowledge while still in school. 

Though starting to learn financial management at middle school sounds unnecessary to most students, since their money is managed by their parents, it isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Currently, the American student loan debt stands at 1.7 trillion dollars. Most students don’t even understand the significance of the amount of money they could to repay after attending college. “A huge problem with this lack of awareness in how the money system works is the inadequacy in education of financial management at a younger age,” Mr. Morin points out. “Before students realize it, their loans can turn from 10,000 to 15,000 dollars in a few years. Compound interest is the most evil devil in this world.” 

Programs like Summer Finance Academy are great solutions to enable students to manage their finances and to be thoughtful about debt. It is a 8-week program that informs students about the money system in detail, including managing budget, debt, credit, and different types of loans, as well as providing instructions on what to do with their money. It is Morin’s hope that students will attend both for their own knowledge and as a way to demonstrate their interests to college: “Colleges like to see students invest their summers in their interests and Summer Finance Academy provides a great opportunity for that. Also, showing the capability of managing your finance properly demonstrates maturity and independence to colleges, which are definitely qualities they admire,” Mr. Morin said about the benefits of attending this summer program. 

Even as an Economics major, Mr. Morin believes that he still didn’t learn much about managing personal finances. This shows that there is a severe lack of access to education toward managing finances in this country. This is why Morin advocates for more programs like Summer Finance Academy and strongly believes that education about financial management should be accessible to all students in the U.S.