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valleysentinel.com
Monte Vista Grads Teach Financial Literacy to Local Teens By Staff Writer
Two graduates of Monte Vista High School, Nina Levin and Jake Ritter, are
opening a new after-school program teaching financial literacy to high school students throughout the San Ramon
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Valley. Their program, Money Smart Teens, is being offered through the Town of Danville’s community center this summer in one week crash courses for teens, with several special “Get That Job!” workshops on resume writing and interview skills that are now open for registration. The courses will be held in the Bishop Ranch Corporate Complex at a cost of $50 per student. After their recent debut at the Danville and San Ramon teen job fair,
at which they taught six halfhour seminars on interview skills, resume building, saving and investment, it became clear that there was a major demand for their services from teens and parent alike. Spots in their classes are filling quickly. Sign-ups and more information are available at www.MoneySmartTeens.net. Nina Levin is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in economics and currently works as a marketing
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analyst for a Palo Alto Tech company. Her small business expertise and passion for the world of finance are what students and fellow teachers enjoy the most about her. Jake Ritter attended UC Davis, also majoring in economics, and has been teaching since 2002. Both graduated from Monte Vista High School in 2004 and now live in Walnut Creek and Alamo, respectively. But the local atmosphere doesn’t put any pressure on the teachers. “I feel like it’s a lot easier to teach teenagers around here,” says Nina, “since we’re all talking about the same living situations, experiences, and general ideas about life. It really helps us stay relevant as teachers and connect to the students.” Nina and Jake designed the Money Smart Teens seminars to prepare teenagers for the financial decisions they face in high school and for the first years away from home. The courses cover everything from the basics of resume writing and interview skills to budgeting, saving, managing checking and savings accounts, and, most importantly, credit management. “There were so many friends of mine who maxed out their credit cards in college without even realizing it, and while some of them were bailed out by their parents, a few of them had to declare bankruptcy,” said Jake, recalling his undergraduate experience at UC Davis. “Who has to declare bankruptcy at 20 years old? Clearly, the need exists.” From their own research and from polls taken by the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy in 2006, the numbers tell a similar story of a growing trend. Over the last 10 years, the number of 18- to 24-year olds declaring bankruptcy has increased by 96 percent. The reason seems clear: the same study found that 60 percent of teens did not know the difference between cash, checks and credit cards. A random sampling of Nina’s alma mater, UC Berkeley, showed that only one in nine students polled know what “APR” means. Nina and Jake started Money Smart Teens in 2009 with the intention of helping
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