SYRACUSE -- Savings accounts, credit cards, balancing check books, it's something most kids don't know much about. "I didn't know any of that," said Nasrene Shehadeh, a senior at Fowler High School.
Today, Shehadeh and other students are learning to manage money. Cooperative Federal, a community development credit union, is teaming up with school leaders to open Falcon Trust. It's a student-run credit union right in school and they've already learned a lot. "I've learned how we can prevent ourselves from eventually maybe even going into bankruptcy after college or even saving," Shehadeh said. "I learned how to save money for college so we don't have to pay back all these loans afterwards," she said.
Starting Thursday, any Fowler student can open an account. The goal is to teach students like Jessica Martinez money management skills and how to be fiscally responsible. "I was spending. I would get my paycheck and just spend," Martinez said. The hope is that students will take what they learn here in school, form positive banking habits at a young age and put them to use later in life. "Just that they have a better understanding of personal finance so they can understand that having a credit card, taking out a loan, it's a responsibility," said Ed Blasland, a teacher at Fowler.
Blasland teaches a course on personal finance and worked with his students to get the credit union up and running. It'll be open Thursdays and Fridays for students to open savings and checking accounts and maybe even eventually get loans. It's a chance for them to learn about managing money now, before they make mistakes later on. "I recognize that I took everything for granted, money for granted a lot, and now I know where my mom's coming from," Martinez said. They're life lessons that you just can't teach from a textbook.
