The pressure was on Tuesday as high school students put their financial knowledge to the

test at the third annual MoneySKILL Mania at the University at Buffalo.

Students from 15 area high schools gathered in the Center for the Arts screening room on

the UB North Campus in Amherst to compete in the game show-styled "money bee." Students

answered multiple-choice financial questions about such topics as credit, investing, insurance

and current events using hand-held clickers that automatically scored each answer.

It was serious business.

Questions included "If Sam earns $100,000 per year at his job, $13,000 a year in dividends

and $1,000 a month in rents, what is his ratio of unearned to earned income?" Players had 10

seconds. (Answer: one to four.)

Of the more than 80 contestants, 82 percent knew a loan's interest rate would decrease if

the borrower offered collateral, 64 percent knew a no-coupon bond pays interest in a lump sum

at the end of the maturity date, and 93 percent knew U.S. Treasury bonds are considered the

safest bond investment.

Students and teachers prepared for the challenge using MoneySKILL, a free, interactive

online curriculum created by Lewis Mandell, UB School of Management professor emeritus of

finance and managerial economics, in conjunction with the American Financial Services Association Education Foundation.

Once the scores were tallied, Clarence High School was deemed the winner, with Sacred Heart

Academy and Harkness Career & Technical Center placing second and third.

"This is a great group of kids. They're very dedicated, very committed, and they did all the

work," said Heather Hartmann, the Clarence High School teacher who coached the winning team.

Team members ... William Harrington, Stephanie Kong and Jerome Trankle ... each won $250 for college savings. Hartmann William received a $100 Stereo Advantage gift card.

Trankle, Jerome, a senior at Clarence High School, received a Toshiba laptop computer as

the highest scoring individual player with 4,154.63 points.

"My parents always tried to teach me about personal finance, and I've always asked

questions about stuff like insurance and banking," said Trankle, Jerome, who will be an

accounting major at UB in the fall. "But there was a lot I learned [with

MoneySKILL] that I didn't know before."

John Kuloszewski of Harkness Career & Technical Center had the second-highest individual

score, while Clarence High School's Stephanie Kong ranked third highest.

Susie Irvine was thrilled to see the program in action at UB. Irvine is president and chief

executive officer of the American Financial Services Association Education Foundation, which

owns MoneySKILL and was among the event's sponsors. She stressed the importance of getting

financial knowledge into the hands of young people.

"They're already in the marketplace; they have ATM cards, credit cards or their parents'

money. We feel very strongly they need to be educated about personal finance early," said

Irvine. "Like reading and math, those skills build on one another and evolve."

For that very reason, the organization is developing a curriculum for middle schoolers.

Enrollment in MoneySKILL has increased rapidly, with the help of M&T Bank, another sponsor.

The program started with 14 teachers in a pilot program four years ago; 350 teachers

registered to use the curriculum last year, according to Cynthia Shore, senior assistant dean

at UB's School of Management, which also sponsored the event.

"The teachers love it because the kids like it so much," she said.