National Jump$tart Survey

A nationwide survey conducted for the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy reveals that high school students in New Hampshire are reversing declining scores and are demonstrating increased aptitude and ability to manage financial resources such as credit cards, insurance, retirement funds and savings accounts.

The results were part of Jump$tart's nationwide survey measuring high school seniors' level of knowledge of personal finance basics, and comparing these to the results from similar surveys conducted in 2004, 2002, 2000 and 1997 by the coalition. The researcher for all five studies was Lewis Mandell, Ph.D., professor of finance and managerial economics at the University of Buffalo School of Management.

In the 2006 survey, on average, participants in New Hampshire answered 54.1% of the questions correctly-which is still a failing grade based upon the typical grade scale used by schools (90-100%=A, 80-89%=B, etc.) This beat the national average, which was 52.4 percent, a slight improvement from 52.3 percent in 2004.

Our Education Committee is currently working with the randomly selected schools in New Hampshire to obtain state-specific results for the 2008 survey. If successful, we will be announcing the results in April, 2008