Youth

This document lists an array of resources for students and their families with tools and information to help make informed decisions about saving, paying, or financing their higher education. This list was compiled by members of the Postsecondary Subcommittee of the Financial Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC), and offers free resources from federal agencies.

Kids learn important money lessons from watching you earn, spend, save, and borrow. The CFPB and the FDIC are working together to help better prepare America’s young people to make financial decisions to achieve their own goals, throughout the stages of their lives. Start with the links below to explore age-appropriate information and activities for your kids.

The official benefits website of the U.S. government informs citizens of benefits they may be eligible for and provides information on how to apply for assistance. Find more than 1,000 Federal and state benefits including housing, food/nutrition, education, grants/loans, disaster relief and Medicare/Medicaid.

FindYouthInfo.gov is the U.S. government Web site that helps you create, maintain, and strengthen effective youth programs. Included are youth facts, funding information, and tools to help you assess community assets, generate maps of local and federal resources, search for evidence-based youth programs, and keep up-to-date on the latest, youth-related news.

This FDIC Consumer News article features tips to help students and their families avoid debt overload as they plan for — and pay for — college, graduate school or other education.

This FDIC brochure provides information and advice on overdraft fees.

This special edition of FDIC Consumer News provides simple strategies and practical guidance for borrowing, saving, banking and avoiding Scams for young adults, teens, parents and caregivers.

Tips to help you avoid spending more than you have to — or responding to a bogus offer posted by a scammer.

This article provides a plain-language description of behavioral economics and the role of common biases in financial decisionmaking, and reviews ways in which the findings of behavioral economics can help structure financial education and public policy.

This short article briefly summarizes and provides a link to the final report on the FDIC Survey of Bank Efforts to Serve the Unbanked and Underbanked. The survey was conducted in 2008 and the report was released in 2009. The FDIC retained Dove Consulting to help administer the survey of banks during 2008. The voluntary survey consisted of mail-in questionnaires administered to a stratified random sample of about 1,300 banks. The nationally representative sample was selected from the population of federally insured banks and thrifts with retail branch operations.