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Financial Education with SECU

SECU employees volunteer at NC schools, equipping over 47,000 students with tools and knowledge to make thoughtful real-life financial decisions.

SECU provides a variety of financial education lessons and resources to assist in the classroom and community. During the last school year, SECU employees participated in 653 presentations across the state, impacting 47,070 North Carolina students. Many of those engagements involved SECU’s Reality of Money® program.

SECU’s Reality of Money program gives students in grades 8-12 a peek into the future as they are transformed into young adults with jobs, debt, families, and other real-world responsibilities. During the simulation, students move through multiple expense stations where volunteers assist them in making the everyday financial decisions necessary to make it to their next payday. Students are exposed to several financial learning points, including:

  • The importance of good credit and its effect on financial opportunities
  • The advantage of additional education after high school
  • The benefit of creating a savings habit to help when the unexpected occurs
  • The value of smart financial decisions to create a solid foundation for the future

While Reality of Money is not the total lesson for financial education, it starts the conversation by providing a great opportunity for schools to work side by side with SECU, parents, and community volunteers to help students prepare for their financial future.

At the end of the program, students turn in anonymous comment sheets providing feedback on lessons learned through the experiential learning model. At a recent event in Raleigh, one student said they could not believe the impact of good versus bad credit. Another offered, “I learned that it’s important to keep track of your spending and to manage your money wisely.”

SECU employees’ goal is to encourage students, engage the community, and assist teachers in broadening their financial knowledge in and outside of the classroom. SECU offers presentations on basic consumer topics such as debt management, identity theft prevention, mortgages, investments, retirement planning, and more. To request information or schedule presentations, contact your local branch office or the SECU Outreach department at outreach@ncsecu.org.