FY26 Renewal: Get Real: Financial Decisions in the Real-World

The FY26 Renewal: Get Real: Financial Decisions in the Real-World program provides students with basic financial skill development practice and comprehensive tools related to financial goal setting, tracking spending, budgeting, banking, checking, managing your first paycheck, investing, credit, and saving. The program teaches students about basic financial concepts through original hands-on activities and video excerpts of interviews with recent high school graduates. The key objectives of the program include increasing students’ awareness of the financial choices they will encounter after graduation, fostering students’ ability to create a personal financial plan and budget, developing students’ understanding of the relationship between education, demand, skills, experience, and income, and building students’ knowledge of the function of credit, the costs of carrying credit card balances, the responsibilities involved in borrowing money, and the importance of an individual’s credit history. • The program uses a ‘reality-based’ or ‘peer-based’ approach to financial education. • Recent financial education research indicates that developing basic, positive financial habits at a young age is a key characteristic of young adults who exhibit positive personal financial management practices. • The program integrates ‘habit building’ exercises. • The program addresses numerous state and national consumer education and personal finance objectives for high school students.