UA Hosts Statewide High School Finance Competition

Note to media: Please contact Kim Eaton (205/348-8325 or kkeaton@ur.ua.edu) in advance if you wish to cover the competition so adequate space for reporters, photographers and cameras can be secured.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama College of Human Environmental Sciences department of consumer sciences will welcome 19 Alabama high schools April 23 as it hosts the third annual Alabama Personal Finance Challenge.

Sponsored by the Alabama Council on Economic Education, the challenge tests high-school students on their knowledge of income and money management, spending and credit, and saving and investing.

In the month leading up to the statewide competition, four-member student teams are required to complete an online 30-question, rapid fire exam in those same categories. An average of the students’ top three scores is computed, and the top 28 teams from the state are then invited to the state competition, said Wanda McAbee, Alabama Council on Economic Education’s program director.

“There are so many people who are totally unprepared for a financial crisis,” McAbee said. “We want to use this competition as a vehicle to take what the students are learning inside the four walls of a classroom and apply it to the real world. We want to encourage and show students how to take more responsibility for their financial lives.”

The high-school students who participate in the competition are generally in consumer and family science, business education, accounting or economics classes. In all, 225 teams comprised of 900 students from 19 schools took part in the 2013 online competition.

In addition, 43 middle-school teams, comprised of 172 students from seven schools took place in the middle school online challenge, McAbee said. The middle-school winner is determined from the online challenge only; there is no onsite state competition. Slocomb Middle School and Oxford Middle School tied for first place.

“We added middle school to help create an early awareness and build those skills earlier in life,” she said.

The high school state competition is mirrored after the national competition, which will be held in May in St. Louis, Mo. The first two rounds will consist of student team members completing individual multiple choice tests. The team members will work collaboratively during the third round. Students earn points for correct answers, have points taken away for wrong answers and receive no points for no answer.

The top two teams will battle it out in a quiz bowl, and the winner will go on to compete at the national competition, which is sponsored by the national Council for Economic Education and Wells Fargo. The state championship team will receive a $1,500 travel stipend and one night hotel stay in St. Louis.

In addition, the top two teams, as well as the student with the highest individual score and the team with the best team name, will also receive cash prizes. In addition to the Alabama Council on Economic Education and UA, additional funding and support comes from Wells Fargo, Investor Protection Trust and Alabama Securities Commission.

This is the first year UA has hosted the competition. Jan Brakefield, an assistant professor in CHES’s consumer science department and a Certified Financial Planner, said UA students will volunteer throughout the day.

“Part of our mission is service, and we see this as a great opportunity for our students to lead through service,” she said. “I want them to appreciate and enjoy an opportunity to use their knowledge and skills to serve other people and experience the reward that comes from that involvement.”

The competition will start at about 9 a.m., and it will be at UA’s Child Development Research Center.

Based on online test scores, teams from the following schools have been invited to participate: Brookwood High School, Mountain Brook High School, Hoover High School, Saint James School, Pope John Paul II Catholic High School, Shades Valley High School, Eufaula High School, Hatton High School, Minor High School, Franklin County Career Technology Center, Paul W. Bryant High School, Auburn High School, Mary G. Montgomery, Oak Grove High School, Holt High School, Shelby County High School, Sumter Central High School, Robert E. Lee High School and Reeltown High School.