Kentucky Bar Foundation Partners with Attorneys and Judges to Provide Students with Financial Literacy Education, Kentucky Bar Association’s Bar & Bench Magazine, 64-65
It’s no secret that student debt is a big issue in the United States today. The Wall Street Journal reported that the undergraduate class of 2015 is graduating as the most indebted class ever. A study recently released by The Institute for College Access & Success found that 64 percent of Kentucky undergraduate students who graduated in 2014 had student loan debt, and those borrowers owe an average of $25,939 each. Just 10 years ago, in 2004, the same percentage of Kentucky’s graduating college students had student loans (64 percent), but those students only owed an average of $14,250. That’s an astounding 82 percent increase in student loan debt for Kentucky’s college graduates.
At a time when students are facing the highest costs ever to earn a college degree, it is vitally important that they receive financial literacy education early in their adult lives. A Sallie Mae research study about undergraduate credit card use reported that a total of 84 percent of the undergraduate students surveyed responded that they were interested in financial literacy training. Asked when they preferred to receive financial management information, 64 percent of the students answered that they would like to have received it in high school, and 40 percent answered in another question that they would like it as college freshmen. As for the best method of instruction, undergraduates favored “in-person education sessions over self-directed or passive methods.”
