Worcester Students Get Financially Savvy

Higher One, a leading provider of financial services and data analytics to more than 1,900 colleges and universities across the U.S., joined students and teachers at Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School this morning for a classroom ceremony to celebrate the students’ success with the Higher One Financial Academy.

Higher One Financial Academy, a financial literacy education course designed to provide young people with important skills needed to demonstrate sound financial behaviors, is made available to students by Higher One in partnership with the leading education technology company EverFi, Inc. The interactive financial management program has reached over 6,000 students across the U.S and is brought to local students at no cost to the schools or taxpayers.

This morning’s classroom event included remarks from Abby Kelley Charter Teachers Kate Larson and Lennie Kasprzak , Lauren Perry of Higher One and Jeremiah R. Montgomery-Thompson, Congressional Staffer to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) and Nicolas Guerra, District Representative for the Office of James P. McGovern (D).

“The program offers our students exposure to financial terms and ideas that they will need in their adult lives including credit scores, insurance, student loans, mortgages, taxes, and other vital concepts that are part of being a financially capable person," said teacher Kate Larson. "The students are motivated to learn this material because many of them are starting their first jobs and thinking about life after high school; they recognize that the information and skills will be important to their daily lives. We are excited to have access to this financial literacy course here as part of our business math curriculum.”

“It’s moving to see that students are gaining financial knowledge and even changing their financial attitudes and behaviors as a result of the course,” said Mary Johnson, Director of Financial Literacy and Student Aid Policy at Higher One. “Being able to reach college-bound students has been tremendously rewarding. We know from a recent study of 65,000 first-year college students, Money Matters on Campus, that high school students who have access to financial literacy education demonstrate better money management skills by the time they reach college."

About EverFi

EverFi, Inc. is the leading education technology company focused on teaching, assessing, and certifying K-12 and college students in the critical skills they need for life. The company teams with major corporations and foundations to provide the programs at no cost to K-12 schools. Some of America’s leading CEOs and venture capital firms are EverFi investors including Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Twitter founder Evan Williams, Rethink Education, New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA), and Tomorrow Ventures (the investment arm of Google Chairman Eric Schmidt). Learn more at www.everfi.com.

About Higher One

Higher One (NYSE: ONE) partners with colleges and universities to lower their administrative costs and to improve graduation rates. We provide a broad array of payment, refund disbursement and data analytics and management tools to institutions that help them save money and enhance institutional effectiveness. And for students, we offer financial literacy programs and convenient, flexible and affordable transaction options to help them manage their finances. Higher One’s products and services support more than 1,900 schools and approximately 13 million enrolled students. More information about Higher One can be found at www.higherone.com.