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Students rank in top of financial class
Published 12:00 p.m., January 7, 2009
Photo by Trisha Marczak
Fifty six Fergus Falls students ranked in the top 25 percentile in the national after taking a U.S. Department of Treasury National Financial Literacy Challenge exam in November.
With the nation’s financial woes regularly in the spotlight these days, area students are taking their financial education seriously — and it shows.
Near the end of November, Fergus Falls students in Kathryn Enderson’s Financial and Life Management course took the U.S. Department of Treasury’s National Financial Literacy Challenge, a test administered to some 75,000 students around the world.
Out of the 99 Fergus Falls students who took the exam, 56 of them were ranked in the top 25 percentile of the nation. Out of those 25 students, two individuals ranked in the top one percentile in the nation: Juniors Pat Billodeau and Brandon Bergerud.
Once all the testing was said and done, students scored a class average of 65 percent. That’s compared to a national average of 52 percent.
“I was very excited because the class scored significantly higher than the national average,” Enderson said.
The Financial Literacy Challenge exam came on the heels of the students’ financial unit, in which students studied through the NEFE financial planning program, which places emphasis on learning through personal financial situations, rather than simply studying from a textbook.
“I think it is just helping them in their everyday finances,” Enderson said.
Billodeau and Bergerud said their recent performance on the exam is a result of the education they have received through the district. Both students are enrolled in college-level math courses at the high school.
All-in-all, Enderson said she’s proud of her students performances, and also excited that they’ll have the knowledge and background to start saving early and to beat debt before it has a chance to accumulate.
“It prevents them from entering that big debt cycle that so many are a part of...it is huge,” Enderson said.
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