To acknowledge the efforts that teachers put into their classes, NGPF Fellows have the option to award a 'Personal Finance Student of the Year Award' to one student with outstanding contributions in their personal finance class. The Fellow selects a student based on the following criteria:

• The student has taken the Fellow's personal finance class in the 2018-2019 school year
• The student has demonstrated outstanding performance in the class based on their participation, academic excellence, and passion for the subject. 

We'll showcase 2 students per week who will also share how they benefited from having a personal finance education in high school.

Congratulations this week go to:

-----

Student: Christopher Gonzalez

Teacher: Mihir Garud

School: Instituto Health Science Career Academy (Chicago, IL)

"What do I think of a personal finance class, well when you think about saving or starting to figure out where to put your money into. It’s best to know what’s best for your well-earned money. It requires some knowledge and basic information on finance but things can be complex but it isn’t once you have the tools to get the job done."

-----

Student: Molly Thomas

Teacher: Laurie Gardner

School: Marine City High School (Marine City, MI)

"Financial management has been a very informative and extremely useful class just from the first semester. The class has taught about budgeting, insurance, financing, and loans. I think that after experiencing a financial life before I took this class and not knowing exactly how to make the best decisions all of the time and now being able to because I can use the tools that I am now equipped with from the class."

About the Author

Laura Matchett

After graduating with an education degree and spending 7 years in an elementary classroom, Laura made the switch to the non-profit world and loves interacting with students, educators and business professionals across the country. She is passionate about all students having access to high quality education and views personal finance education as one way to ‘level the playing field’. When Laura is not locating or creating high quality educational resources, you can find her mountain biking or searching for the best ramen in town!