Students play MoneySKILL Mania
Game that tests financial literacy is held at UB
Murmurs rumbled through the crowd when the answers were revealed. Some contestants smirked and nodded, others threw their heads back in exasperation. Intense music flowed from speakers as the contestants tapped out their next answers into handheld clickers.
No, it was not a clip from the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” It was MoneySKILL Mania, the second annual financial literacy competition hosted at the University at Buffalo with M&T Bank.
And though there was no million dollars up for grabs, the financial future of students from 20 area schools was on the line.
“This program ensures these students leave high school knowing the fundamentals about credit, budgeting and spending,” said Cynthia Shore, assistant dean at UB’s School of Management. “The credit crisis we’re in as a nation didn’t start with people who understood finances.”
Students answered multiple-choice questions such as “Which is an example of a regressive tax: property tax, federal income tax, state income tax or sales tax?” The answer, which more than half the students answered correctly, is sales tax.
High school financial literacy scores across the U. S. come in abysmally low — around the 50 percent range — according to a survey by UB finance and economics professor emeritus Lewis Mandell on behalf of the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy.
In fact, bridging that vast knowledge gap is what Mandell had in mind when he and the American Financial Services Association Education Foundation developed Money- SKILL, the free online finance curriculum students used to prepare for Thursday’s competition.
“All you have to do is open the newspaper to know even Congress isn’t financially literate,” said Kenneth McKinnon of Sacred Heart Academy, whose AP government seniors took first place in the competition.
For the past six years, McKinnon has made the MoneySKILL curriculum a requirement for all of his students. Sacred Heart Academy won the top prize last year, too.
“There was a little pressure walking in because we were the defending champions. We just tried our best,” said Mary Stottele, a Sacred Heart senior who also came in second place as the individual student with the most correct answers.
Stottele and her classmates each won $250 college savings funds. McKinnon received a $100 Stereo Advantage gift card for coaching the winning team.
Mitchell Pawlak of Clarence High School won first place as the individual student to answer the most questions correctly and took home a Toshiba laptop computer.
MoneySKILL, assigned in his teacher Heather Hartmann’s classroom, was Pawlak’s first encounter with finance management and economics. He believes his studies will serve him well in the future.
“Before this year, I didn’t know what a mutual fund was, I didn’t know about buying stocks, I had no idea how the financial markets related to the world,” said Pawlak.
Erie 1 BOCES Legal Academy, coached by Wendy Fischer, nabbed third place. Jeremy Frayne, originally scheduled as an alternate player with the school, had the third highest individual score for correct answers overall.
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