Financial Literacy Program, Led by Ƶ Alum, Seeks to Lift Underserved Out of Poverty
Marcy Reyes ’12 (pictured above, right), adjunct professor of finance at Ƶ and founder and executive director of the Financial Literacy Youth (FLY) Initiative, has been a pioneer in bringing much-needed financial literacy programming to underserved and underrepresented youth in Rhode Island.
“We focus on the underserved and underrepresented because there are no robust financial education courses in inner city schools, yet this is the demographic that could benefit from it the most,” she says.
“Starting this program became a matter of social justice for me,” she went on. “I also saw it as an equity issue. Everyone deals with money. Why don’t we all have access to the same level of education and resources?”
Financial literacy classes teach youth the basics of money management, which lays the foundation for building strong money habits in the future and helps lift families out of the cycle of poverty.
FLY is made up of three educators, who have the highest level of accreditation in financial education. They are bilingual and trained to be culturally responsive. They go into high schools, serving students in 11th and 12th grade, and teach a 10-module course. The course is either provided as an elective or embedded into an existing business course. FLY also works with community agencies such as the YMCA, the Boys & Girls Club and afterschool programs.
To keep coursework relevant for teens, FLY instructors ask students to list their top three financial goals. The most common are: to get their own apartment, to put a down payment on a car or to pay for college without a lot of debt. Then they’re asked to build a financial plan around it.
Reyes explains that a financial plan is like GPS coordinates. “To start out on a trip, you first need to know where you are and where you want to go. All the coordinates in between is your financial plan to help you get there.”
“If you’re making decisions that aren’t supporting your financial goal, whether it’s banking at a bank that charges monthly fees or not filing your taxes, you’re impacting the goal you’ve set,” Reyes says.
By the end of the course, FLY students are already practicing in the real world the skills they’ve learned in the classroom.
“We have students who will come back and say, ‘I went to the bank the other day with my dad to open a checking account. My dad talked to me about overdraft fees, but I already knew everything about them, and I was able to tell my dad things he didn’t know.’”
FLY students leave equipped with enough confidence to make informed financial decisions. Even more, they help their families make better decisions about money. Ultimately, FLY’s goal is to break the cycle of poverty and to help build stronger families, neighborhoods and communities.
In June 2021 state legislators recognized the importance of financial education for all students in Rhode Island and signed into law the requirement that all high schools offer a personal finance course and that seniors take this course before they graduate.
“FLY will be there to help Rhode Island schools make that transition," Reyes says. “We have accredited, bilingual, culturally responsive educators and a curriculum that aligns with state and national standards.”
She’s already rolling up her sleeves, preparing to expand FLY’s reach.
Marcy Reyes received her B.S. degree in finance at Rhode Island College in 2012 and her M.S. in finance at Northeastern University in 2014.