Behavioral economics and its concept of nudges are rapidly influencing the design of community-based financial education programs. This article addresses why nudges can be useful tools for effective financial education, explains the different types of nudges introduced by behavioral economics research, presents evidence of their effectiveness from…

A nonprofit community development financial institution and Extension collaborated to conduct a demonstration project to evaluate efficacy of Grameen peer-group microfinance methodology in addressing barriers faced by low-income women entrepreneurs in a small metro area. Program performance metrics achieved by 284 culturally diverse, low-income…

This paper discusses the potential fiscal effects of education savings accounts for K-12 in New Jersey on the state and local taxpayers. Education savings accounts are a way to expand educational opportunity for all families, particularly those in need. For parents who voluntarily elect to customize their child's education, a specified amount is…

After decades of making minor tweaks to the U.S. financial aid system, there is a need to develop truly novel approaches to paying for college. Until now, the goal of financial aid has been narrowly framed as providing young adults with enough money to pay for college while minimizing the short-term burden to taxpayers. Because of this narrow…

Theoretically, increasing family resilience, may contribute to an increase the resilience of communities. However families in South Africa experience challenges to their resilience, often owing to a variety of historic, socio-economic, and political factors. Research and intervention planning that attempts to ameliorate the effects these factors,…

Technological advances have created unprecedented opportunities for online financial education that can be used to improve financial literacy and money management practices. While online financial education programs have become popular, relevant research and theoretical frameworks have rarely been considered in the development of such programs.…

This report introduces the MyGoals for Employment Success demonstration. MyGoals is an employment coaching program that helps participants set and achieve goals. It seeks to do so by explicitly focusing attention on participants' executive skills. MyGoals also offers participants a set of financial incentives to encourage, facilitate, and reward…

This article provides an overview of challenge-based social entrepreneurship education in primary schools in Austria. The "You[superscript th]Start"-Programme "Empowering Each Child" is introduced as well as its impact on children. Research accompanying the programme shows that small challenges strengthen particularly the…

The term "outcome evaluation" has become one of the most popular terms among human service providers and those whose job it is to evaluate the impact of human service programs. In the public sector alone, there are over a hundred instruments in use to evaluate the impact of state human service programs. Most states, many providers, and…

This chapter addresses financial education across the lifespan, which has the potential to enhance adult financial capability, yet methodological barriers and a lack of robust measures have hampered the ability to identify and measure the effects of educational programs on financial decisions and behavior.

The purpose of this report is to demonstrate the power of connecting Children's Savings Account (CSAs) to college access-success programs and show that, when done together, they produce greater outcomes. First, we briefly describe these closely related fields and explain the merit of partnerships between CSA initiatives and college access and…

One year ago, the "Wall Street Journal" dubbed 2011 "the year of school choice," opining that "this year is shaping up as the best for reformers in a very long time." School-choice laws took great strides in 2011, both in the number of programs that succeeded across states and also in the size and scope of the adopted…

This article describes the development and evaluation of an online health and personal finance behavior change challenge that can be adapted for other Extension subject matter areas. The Small Steps to Health and Wealth™ Challenge is a behaviorally focused activity in which registered users self-report health and financial behaviors and receive…

Dollar Works 2 is a comprehensive personal financial education program to help individuals and families strengthen their skills, better manage their personal finances, and make sound decisions about money. This article chronicles the evolution of a curriculum to enhance and modify materials to improve learning and meet the needs of multiple…

Every program in a school or school district has, or once had, a purpose. The purpose was most likely promoted, argued and debated among school constituencies--parents, teachers, administrators and school board members--before it was eventually approved. This process occurs year after year, budget after budget. In itself, this is not necessarily a…