Financial Literacy of Teenagers

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) released the results of its 2012 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) financial literacy assessment of 15 year old students from 18 countries including the United States. Results from the US include:

• Students in the US ranked somewhere between 8 and 12 among the 18 countries represented.
• More than one in six US students did not reach the baseline level of proficiency in financial literacy.
• About one in ten students in the US is a top performer able to "take into account features of financial documents that are significant but unstated or not immediately evident, such as transaction costs, and can describe the potential outcomes of financial decisions."
• In the US about 70% of advantaged students have a bank account compared to 32% of socio-economically disadvantaged students.