The Student-Managed Investment Fund at the High School Level

Abstract

Financial Education, primarily to promote financial education in both primary and secondary education curriculum (Cruz 2002). Yet the reality remains that with so many mandates already placed on curriculums, making financial education a requirement is a daunting task in most states. Compounding the problem is that, as a recent survey indicated, most parents are not effective in educating their children in money management (TIAA-CREF Institute 2001). Cocurricular financial education within the schools is seen as the most practical solution for now (Gores 2001). Although student-managed investment vehicles have taken many forms in higher education since Gannon University started the first such venture in 1952 (Kahl 1997; Lawrence 1994), few high schools have entered this arena. Students in secondary education, however, can gain valuable benefits from participating in such an activity. In many academic disciplines, material that was previously taught only at the collegiate level is now part of high school curriculums; extending the concept of student-managed portfolios, which work with real money, to secondary education is warranted from many educational perspectives. Undertaking this on a voluntary basis because of curriculum constraints still provides pedagogical benefits and helps address the need to increase financial education opportunities for high school students. Dominican High School, in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, launched the Student Endowment Investment Fund (SEIF) in 1998 to give students practical moneymanagement opportunities and to help stimulate their interest in learning about other financial skills. The SEIF is run by students and manages real money for the school, including one endowed scholarship. Dominican is a Catholic college-preparatory school of approximately four hundred students. It draws 70 percent of its students from the city of Milwaukee and has a minority enrollment of 35 percent. The SEIF is a cocurricular club that introduces and serve as a culmination to a three-course business curriculum for students. The three courses offered at Dominican are business law, which introduces students to different types of law and the court system; personal finance, which explores various aspects of financial planning, individual goal setting, savings versus spending, insurance, credit/borrowing, investment strategies, retirement planning, and other skills; and basic economics, which enables students to make economic decisions using a reasoned approach based on sound research and judgment. Joyce Walsh, a faculty member and moderator of SEIE says that students' involvement in the fund has stirred their interest in tak-