Money Talks - Students Learn about Finances During a New Workshop Series

The first Money Talks Workshop took place in the Reagan Lecture Hall and via Zoom for distance-learning students during the week of May 4, 2021.  Facilitated by Director of College Counseling Ms. Corie McDermott-Fazzino and her husband, Mr. Christopher Fazzino, CRCP in partnership with Assistant Headmaster for Student Life Ms. Paula Walter, this three-part workshop covered topics ranging from basic financial literacy to paying for college.  

Each session was composed of 30-40 engaged, thoughtful students who (voluntarily!) weathered 90-minute presentations—and in some cases, attendees came to all three in a row. The audience represented a mix in financial fluency, so Corie and Chris worked to make it interesting and accessible at all levels. Students asked many questions during the talk to expand upon the following topics, including how the Federal Reserve works; how to think about/manage one’s credit score; how college endowments work and relate to rankings; and the particulars of investing strategies. At least half of the students in each session asked at least one question.  

Given the popularity of this programming, there are more workshops planned for the next school year.  The continued partnership with the Office of Student Life will allow these sessions to be re-run next spring with an additional session that will focus on Sixth-Form needs. The working title for the new session is “So you are 23-years-old…Now what?”

Merritt ‘23, who attended all three sessions and had rated her own financial literacy as “a three out of a ten” before the talks, found the topics around beating the inflation rate and the importance of diversifying your stock and bond portfolio especially interesting. She is looking forward to attending more seminars next year that delve deeper into the topics covered, such as good debt versus bad debt.