DENVER — Northfield High School seniors Oliver Deines and Krish Vipani think too many of their peers are leaving high school without some basic financial knowledge. Now they’re on a mission to make financial literacy a graduation requirement in Colorado.
“We saw that kids didn't know how to get a mortgage, they didn't know what a loan was, they didn't know how to make car payments, and that's all stuff that's going to go with you for the rest of your life,” Deines said.
Deines and Vipani are both members of the youth advisory board for Young Americans Center for Financial Education in Denver. They are also the co-founders of a non-profit- Financial Kids Colorado. They’ve been visiting school leaders to push for more classes in financial literacy, including grade appropriate lessons in budgeting, investing and fiscal responsibility.
“We want maybe a course in 7th grade, it gets revisited in 10th grade, and then again in 12th grade,” Deines said.
Recently, the two were able to add a clause to the Denver Public Schools student bill of rights about the right to a financial education. While schools in Colorado are encouraged to adopt financial literacy curriculum, it is not a statewide graduation requirement.
