l.a. are spread out throughout the city and the county and we are -- where we open our doors or a variety of services, we don't exclude others. so as a result a.p.i.'s are only about a third of our -- of the clients that come walking through our doors. .

i come at this a bit differently than others. i have been a practitioners for over 35 years -- i should say over 20 because it makes me feel old. i am a vice chair called the colony group. we have about $3.5 billion in assets. $3.4 billion. we do financial planning, wealth management for families and kids. we spend a lot of time talking to kids. we are only the fiduciary i.r.a., we're independent. that's what i do most of the time. in the past i've also done a radio show in boston for 10 years called the money experts. all we did was answer questions for individuals, individuals with little means and little

knowledge but a thirst for learning and doing the right thing. along the way i created and directed the boston university program for financial planners. it's a classroom and online program. i was the director for over 20 years. it's now the fourth largest certified financial planner in the country and largest in a not-for-profit institution. i was also chair of the certified financial planner board in 2010. it's a group that created the comprehensive exam and creates standards for people who want to become certified financial planners. couple other issues that i think might be helpful by way of background. my wife and i recently created and endowed a financial literacy program for all high school seniors. similar to what the cfpb described in their report with metrics for graduation and really trying to watch it

evolve and hopefully all the seniors will graduate understanding about credit card debt, student loans and issues like that as they start their lives and their careers. i am the father of four me lynnials and that probably makes me the most qualified. i think this council is exceedingly important. melinnials, they are saving at a low level. they have high debts and loans and credit cards. we need to be financially secure. a study showed us that. they can't rely on their parents and government as they grow old. they need to learn how to invest, not just save but also invest. they've been investing pretty conservatively in a short-term basis and we need to help them invest longer term. i think all of those are important. what i'd like to see the

council achieve, besides -- we talked a lot about financial education. it's also practical. how do we get people in this country to actually act. it's not just to learn but to act, act in their own best interest and in society's best interest. so i'd like to see doable steps, measurable actions so we bring information and delivery system together so that at the end of the day action is actually taken because i think it's critical to just inform people, to educate people. that's great. that's a great step. but without the action nothing really gets done at the end of the day. and as a practitioner i really understand how implementation can be critical to actually doing good, and that's hopefully what i can help ontribute here so thank you. >> hi, there. my name is ted. i am a me lenial with a

background in startups, the viral spread of ideas. it's an honor and privilege to be on this council along with some of the thought leaders in this space that i've admired from a very young age. i'm also the c.e.o. and co-founder of moneythink, which is the only movement of young people working to restore the economic health of the u.s. through financial mentoring and mobile technology. on the financial mentoring ide, we've trained just over 1 actually doing good, and that's hopefully what i can help contribute here so thank you. >> hi, there. my name is ted. i am a me lenial with a background in startups, the viral spread of ideas. it's an honor and privilege to be on this council along with some of the thought leaders in this space that i've admired from a very young age. i'm also the c.e.o. and co-founder of moneythink, which

is the only movement of young people working to restore the economic health of the u.s. through financial mentoring and mobile technology. on the financial mentoring side, we've trained just over 1,000 college volunteers to mentor and serve as positive financial role models with just over 7,500 inner city -- through our work in the classrooms have observed this particular age group, kind of a o 18, 16 to 19 is facing shift from sporadic income to steady income and a shift from financial dependence to financial independence. ese students also face the densest concentration of financial issues they had to face and might ever have to face. we've administratored as sort of preventative treatment as said earlier. on the mobile side we've had the honor and privilege of working with the leading practitioners with rapid problem solving. and have built some mobile technology solutions that are being piloted and rolled out across the country. as the youngest person on this council, i feel a particular humility and seriousness with regard to my role. my parents were born into poverty and saved every penny

and worked hard and took chances so i could have the opportunities they never had. in a youth i was a bit of a knuckle head and squandered those opportunities. it wasn't until i was 14, as an unengaged student, always getting into trouble, that a tutor who had grown up in ghana, who had saved money for a plane ticket to come to the u.s. to study and pursue the american dream, came into my life and turned my mirrors into windows and this young man was 19. i was 14. i related to him because he was young but i respected him because he was just a little bit older than i was. he taught me not just math and got my grades to go up but he also taught me how to set goals, taught me how to think about my life, like a venture and my decisions like investments. and so it was natural when the economy collapsed in 2008 and i was in college at the university of chicago to start

a small community shift called moneythink, to create a tutoring program that would focus on money skills rather than academics between college students and local high school teenagers. and between 2008 and today that program has grown as a grassroots organization and now kind of a technology laboratory to be in multiple cities across the country. i've seen our students help their mothers keep their heat on in the winter, save money for their little sisters and brothers to get eyeglasses so they can see the board in class. earn college scholarships, earn recommendation letters from their college mentors who get to know them over the course of an entire year and it's been an awesome opportunity. some of these students are now my closest friends. these students and me are some of the lucky ones, though, to be honest.

there are 6.7 million young people in the u.s. that are both out of work and out of a job. this represents nearly 2% of today's american population. young people historically struggle to hear their voice heard so in my kind of humble post on this council i aim to represent and channel that voice. what i hope to achieve is really a win-win for the future and what i hope this council achieves. it's a win-win for the future. i hope that everyone will come away from this driving student centered technologically enhanced approaches to learning. when you speak to a student on their level they listen and when you put their program in their pocket like a smartphone, you unlock new pathways to productivity, prosperity, customized lrning and measurement. you reduce the cost of scaling. you get real-time behavioral

data that can work from lesson to lesson and build be a evidence base to attract the capital and craft the partnerships to create the cure to financial distress. and even the odds for future generations. so it's an honor to be on this council and i look forward to learning from all of you. >> good morning. nd my experience with having a illennial son, if you pulled a 14-year-old -- so well done. 'm rich ketchum, c.e.o. of nra, largest nongovernmental security. i have a mission of protecting investors and maintaining market integrity. and pleased to be the chairman of the center of investor foundation and the finra foundation and its many partnerships is focused on helping underserved americans

with the tools they need for financial success. for example, our grant-making partnerships with the american library association and united way worldwide reaches vulnerable communities across the nation. they've leveraged opportunities to engage youth in financial education, both in school and out of school and they've piloted innovative strategies in the workplace. adult-based education programs and the community colleges to help young adults achieve financial goals. part of the city empowerment coalition, including san francisco. i want to particularly note i'm very pleased to treasurer cisnarrows is with us in the new version of the advisory committee and i think we'll provide terrific leadership. we also reach youth through our team financial literacy project known as generation money. generation money is a multimedia partnerships with channel 1. it reaches five million middle

school and high school students annually addressing the personal finance skills that are most important for teens to master and use in everyday situations. behind outreach and education, we strongly believe that data is critical to refining and directing financial capability efforts where they are needed most. that's why we developed working closely with the treasury and with two earlier versions of the advise ry council, the national financial capability study which has been -- been mentioned a couple times today. each wave of that study surveyed more than 25,000 american adults allowing us to fine tune our analysis, specific subpopulations and that includes millennials, generation between 1978 and 1994. the report that we summarized and made available today demonstrates that particularly in lower income households and

households with dependence but really across the board millennials face special challenges from the financial standpoint capability. in one way or another, in the midst of their education or just on the other side of it they faced the great recession and the tremendous challenges from both being able to find jobs and to work through issues in that environment. the data demonstrates things that are not surprising. it demonstrates a person -- persons that are way too much dependent on nonbank lending while they have been -- had more access than earlier generations to some form of financial capability instruction. the absorption of that is simply not demonstrated from a testing standpoint and their exposure as they move through an environment where those that have moved forward even those that have moved forward from an educational standpoint are way more burdened by student loans,

both in percentage and size that all of us in earlier generations can barely even relate to. so all that i think really demonstrates what has been made -- point made across the board which is we need to move financial capability education and communication away from accidental, occasional, fortunate interactions to an environment where it's focused and consenstrate and very much looking to evaluate and identify what works. so it's a pleasure to be involved in this advisory committee, particularly with a strong focus on financial apability for youth. >> hi. i'm beth, a financial journalist. i wanted to start with really two fast stories about one -- one about my middle son who's about 5 or 6 years old at the time. we were putting him into bed and he looked me in the eyes

with his big brown eyes and said, mommy. i have a question for you. what's the meaning of life? where are babies from? ow do i get compound interest? and that's what happens when you hear your mom talk about personal finance all the time. my parents were both born in 1929. deep in the depression. they had no money. either their families. and yet when my dad became a teacher he was offered the opportunity to put half of his salary into his 403-b plan at the time. and he did. and he had an intuitive sense of this. i think it's probably why i've decided to spend -- i have been spending my life talking to young people about these issues, these personal finance issues that are so important. i think today we have a unique opportunity and obligation on this council to offer the president concrete action-oriented recommendations. one thing's clear to me that the time is absolutely right

for action. in june, the first results of the first ever pisa international financial literacy test of 15-year-olds will be released and i hope i'm wrong but i fear america's scores may be disappointingly low and signal that we really have our work cut out for us. previously, i was fortunate enough to serve on the council under john rogers, amazing leadership. and on the council i was on the youth subcommittee chaired by amy risen and we created an online interactive tool called money as you grow.org. we sifted through dozens of reports, research, curricula and came up with the 20 essential things parents need to teach kids from ages 3 to 23. we had no marketing, no p.r. budget. but the site has had more than one million visits since its launch at the white house. and it continues to grow to about 25,000 visits per month. the effort went viral, thanks

mostly to moms passing around social media it was pint rest and facebook. it was one thing to see a cat riding ice skates and have that go viral but when it comes to personal financial, -- finance, it is news when it goes viral. clearly money as you grow struck a chord and it's offering evidence that families are hungry for this information. so real quickly for the council. i have two specific issues i think we can tackle. one for teens, one for toddlers. first the teens. college grads have a much higher lifetime earnings potential than people who don't go to college. we all know that. one way to increase enrollment s to get more families to fill out the free financial application. ore than one million applicants don't. that millions of pell grants are being left on the table.

one recent study found when a professional help a family help fill it out, they get more and see a 25% increase in enrollment. what can the council do? here's some highlights. let's bring together ideas to teach families to fill out the fafsa. that's offer college incentives to use work study dollars to train college students, a little bit like what ted does, to help. the president recently launched a terrific financial aid tool kit for high school counselors. let's make sure these high school counselors know about it. let's support the efforts of the first lady and arne duncan who has been the champion on financial literacy in this country. as well as the fafsa form. he's been around talking to high school students about this with the first lady. and let's work to make february fill out the fafsa month and sponsor p.s.a. and accounting

firms to help. that's teens. now toddlers. everyone knows there is a real momentum for universal prek. the president has spoken about it in his last two state of the union addresses. preschoolers are capable of understanding basic financial concepts. some of those include value and exchange, delaying gratification and making choices. let's get financial literacy content by bringing together educators, behavioral economists and game really experts. even banks seem to be willing partners. in 2012, p.n.c. bank teamed up with sesame street to create a financial education initiative which showed that such efforts not only teach preschoolers but they actually found that the parents of these preschoolers who participated and watched the sesame street show on financial literacy, the parents improved their savings as well. it's worth noting that the most visited section of money as you

grow.org by far is the loan for 3 to 5-year-olds. we have an opportunity right now. there is a lot going on in the financial literacy world. e.t.s. is talking about having a financial literacy test for high school students assessing what kids need to know, particularly focusing on underserved populations. the financial literacy and education commission is zeroing in on youth in a reinvigorated way, thanks to me liss cy, they are shedding light paying for college and arne duncan, the supporter of all things financial literacy, we need to support niece efforts. i'm truly humbled to be part of this amazing council with the older members and amazing new members. thank you for listening. >> hi. i'm the treasurer of the city and county of san francisco. i'm honored to serve as vice chair of this council and join all the other members in

working on this important topic. in san francisco, we've set an aggressive agenda in municipal work in financial empowerment. i'm proud that we have the finest office of financial empowerment in the country and we get to work with local and other partners in being a recognized leader in the field. many of you i know are familiar with our bank on san francisco program. seven years ago we launched the bank on program to respond to the need for access to healthy and affordable financial products for our underserved residents. and today almost 100 cities and states across the country have created their own bank on programs in their communities to begin to take a serious look at the role that they can play in building the financial security of our most vulnerable constituents. since then we've launched a range of programs and serves focused on fore key areas -- first, increasing access to safe and affordable products.

also, delivering effective financial education and counseling. also helping families save and build assets and finally providing protection to consumers in the financial marketplace. when we undertake in all these efforts we focus on leveraging the unique powers of local government to convene the stakeholders involved, to influence partners that we might not have engaged on doing this work and using local government to integrate financial empowerment initiatives right into the systems and programs and services we provide to the residents of our city every day. and in 2011 we started the kindergarten to college program. san francisco's the only city in the country that automatically enrolls every entering kindergartener in our schools into a college savings account on the first day of school. we created k-c because we

believe that every child should start off in the financial mainstream. not shut out in the fringes and that every family should have the opportunity to savable for their dreams. we were pleased to have secretary duncan and chair rogers join us for our working discussion of our program last year, and we were up front and open about it because launching kindergarten to college wasn't easy. we faced many obstacles, particularly in finding the right account structure to automatically open thousands of accounts for 5-year-olds. as well as securing public dollars to put fee deposits into these accounts and private funds to provide matching funds to families. however, our efforts are starting to pay off. today, more than 13,000 kindergarteners through fourth graders in san francisco have these savings accounts and more than 1,500 families have started saving.

and so far these families have saved more than $550,000 of their own family money for their children's education. that means our savings participation rate is about 12%, a number that is four times higher than the percentage of families saving in traditional college savings accounts across the u.s. but even more remarkable, most of our savers are low-income families. for example, at gord j. lao elementary school, 86% of students have enrolled in the national school lunch program. at that school today more man 20% of the families are successfully saving for their kids' college education. i would like to work with all of you, with the federal agencies here and all of the partners to make sure that programs like kindergarten to college are available in more cities across the country. k to c is more than just a

college savings program, it ties financial education to a real-life savings account. it creates a culture of savings by being universally available and most importantly it builds aspirations that college can and should be a reality for every child in our country. i'm excited to work with all of you to develop recommendations and initiatives that go well beyond bringing financial education to the classroom because there's so much more to be done. we need better products in the market to support young americans and their families in saving and building financial security. and this includes transactional products as well as savings accounts. we need to provide better financial education at all stages and life cycles, including in the classroom, and when our young people transition to college and then ultimately to the work force. we need to ensure our students can finance their education without drowning in debt when they graduate. and finally, we need to focus on intergenerational

approaches. financial capability is a family affair and we cannot ignore the impact of financially insecure home life has on our young people. so i'd like to thank the president for forming this council and allowing me to work with all of you to make this a reality. thank you very much. >> good morning, everybody. i come to this honored and esteemed council from facebook, where my day job is focused on helping brands and companies market, leverage their platform to market consumers. i think the more important stuff that i might bring to this endeavor is focused on the work i do outside of work which is -- has been in and around the passion project for me which is charter schools. i had the privilege to open one

in brooklyn that opened doors in 2000 and then did it again in atlanta. both kindergarten through eighth grade schools and both doing extremely well and making a big difference in those locations. so i bring a passion really focused on empowering young people and young families, actually, because i think this is a family endeavor as much as it is a young person's endeavor into having the tools to be able to be successful in this world. why this council and why am i honored and prifrpbled to be part of it? i -- privileged to be part of it? i think it allows me to bring the expertise of my day job and tied directly to my passion projects outside of work. and bring those two walls together in a unique well. ere is -- i think somebody

mentioned earlier on the leveraging of technology and innovation should be -- should be a foundational part to this and i hope my experiences in -- most of my working career in those areas can be leveraged in that way. and so, yeah, what do i want us to achieve? we have clearly identified and many people talked about many of the gaps that we see out in the marketplace and how ill-equipped some of our young people are able to deal swom of the choices that will lead to the foundations of their financial security in the future. so i'd love to see us really tackle those with the understanding that particularly now in today's day and age that leveraging technology, innovation, digital, social is both a communications mechanism and also an empowering mechanism can be part of how we can do this. selfishly i'd like to see this earlier into kids' education and integrating this into

school programs and curriculums is also a passion for me. i'd love -- we've done some work in our charter schools. i'd love that to be part of the charter that we kind of activate. i'm humbled by the bred and depth of the experiences that everybody on this council brings. i'm honored to participate and i look forward to getting into the hard work. >> thank you very much. good morning. i'm marc, the president of the national urban league and certainly let me thank john gers, arne duncan, jack lew, melissa, jose, president obama, the president of giving us a privilege to serve the nation on this important issue. i was not but i am going to tell a little story because i think it makes a point. and this is a true story by a well-known activist and social

critic who shared a story with a group of us several years ago. of a that he was all sudden feeling very ill. headaches, backaches, hyperventilation, knee aches, all sorts of health challenges. or the first time in his life. and so as a vegetarian and naturalist, he drank beet juice and carrot juice and kale juice and did all sorts of holistic things. tried out acupuncture and none of it did a thing. so he broke down and said, well, maybe i need to go to the traditional doctor. and he went to the traditional doctor and he was prescribed all sorts of pills and medications and injections and bed rest. and none of it worked. and then all of a sudden he had

a conversation with a friend of his and his friend said, he said, dick, why don't i just pay off all your debts? he says once his debts were paid off miraculously the headache went away, the backache went away. his problems all went away. and i think the lesson certainly is that debt and poor financial decisionmaking can be disabling to families, to individuals in ways that many of us may not be able to imagine. i just want to make a few quick points. we at the national urban league have been in the business of financial literacy, financial education, financial capability, i tend to like the term financial empowerment, for a long time. and we've been on this journey because we are a due tank. we provide direct services to over two million people each year through a network of 95 affiliates. and in the work we're doing

now, we're trying to integrate, if you will, financial education and empowerment into our after-school programs, into our job training programs, into our entrepreneurship programs because of the thought that financial decisionmaking in the 21st century has to be a part of every single thing that we do. i'm struck at the financial decisions that very young people make every day. young people have these devices. it's a beautiful thing. it is not free. it is not free, and with the device you have the opportunity to make further financial decisionmaking by downloading games, by paying for apps, turn on the television at home, go to the ondemand channel and there is another opportunity for young people to make

financial decisions. young people today are making financial decisions at an earlier age, be it because those phones are tied usually to a parent or grandparent's credit card. they're making financial decisions not only for themselves but also for you. so this decision has to be seen in this issue in today's context. not in the context with -- in which we all grew up, a generation or two or three or so ago, but in today's world, the very real, real decisions, the very real financial decisions that young people are making at an earlier and earlier age. so here's where i think an opportunity is. there's a discussion of -- around common core state standards. we're intimately involved in that. that creates an opportunity to integrate, if you will,

financial education, not as an extra, not as something that's ancillary but something that is intimately involved in how we teach courses like math, how we help people apply the principles that they're learning in school in real decisionmaking. there's a further opportunity here. director chord ray and his work -- cordray and his work at the new agency creates this whole new world of conversation about consumer empowerment, consumer protection, consumer information. what i think we have to do as a commission, we have limited time. the clock is indeed running. what we don't want to do is reinvent the wheel. i had an opportunity like several of you to serve on the previous commission that made a whole set of important recommendations that i hope provides a starting point for

what we do. the second thing i think we want to do is keep it real. keep it real. create are a set of steps -- create a set of steps, action steps that can be actualized at the local level by those institutions, nonprofits, schools, for-profits, regulators, etc., who really truly understand the value of impacting this. and thirdly, we need to hear from some young people. in this process, i don't know if that says we ought to do a field hearing, but we need to hear from the young people themselves. high schoolers, college students get their per expectively, not anecdotally, not through hearsay but through direct engagement from this commission. i think it will be illuminating, i think it will educate us, i think it will empower us and i think we'll find out that young people know

more than we think they know. and we'll also find there is a great energy and thirst for being better educated and better informed about our economic system and the world that they live in and the world that they face. those recommend r --ations, i'm proud to work with john and all the members of the commission. >> good morning. i'm dei anna, c.e.o. of the guardian life insurance company of america based in new york city. i'm honored to be part of this commission and thank you for inviting me. i'm new to the council. but i'm very excited about working on one of the most important and compelling issues that i think we face for the next generation of americans and also as some point have -- people have pointed out. guardian is owned by our policyholders. we were founded in 1860, so

we've just finished our 153rd year as a financial institution. being owned by our policyholders, we return about 70% of our profits to our policyholders every year in the form of dividends. our mission, part of our charter is to provide financial security for as many people as possible, individuals, small businesses and families. and part of our commission as a mutual company is also to be of service in our community. in terms of the financial literacy council and what i'm hoping and guardian is hoping to accomplish here, we are a fortune 250 company and we are a financial institution and we believe that large corporations and financial institutions can be a force for good in society and can definitely contribute to this effort. like everyone else in this room, we have observed the

challenges of americans, not only in managing their money on a daily basis, but in preparing for retirement. and many americans, particularly middle-income and lower-income americans are hopelessly underinsured, meaning sometimes their families are unprotected in the case of an early death or disability of the main breadwinner of the family. that's one of the issues that we work "encore booknotes" a daily basis. -- work on on a daily basis. as we've been working on this in the past three years of being c.e.o., we are trying to contribute to make people more aware of their needs and obligations in terms of providing for their families. and we've also decided that we needed to channel our corporate giving and our fillan thropic efforts -- philanthropic efforts. in doing so we depe sided to put all of our efforts into

financial literacy for community colleges. and we have engaged some experts because we are not education experts to help us in doing that. there are many experts in the room. i'm sure we can learn more from you going forward and we look forward to that. but one of the things that we have noticed and part of what i would hope that this council might be able to address and accomplish, in working with community college students, it's not just the education. the curriculum we use -- and we looked at many different curricula -- are very similar. the bavings of what to do and even how to do it are familiar and are easily taught. one of the issues and challenges that our students have faced is all of the -- i would call it surround sound of their life. so if they can't get to class, if they have an emergency, if they don't know how to open a bank account, if people at home are threatened by the fact that they are suddenly becoming more

financially capable, how do they move forward and achieve their goals? so we are looking into how to provide more mentorship opportunities and our employees and even some of our clients have volunteered to be mentors to the students where we're providing this financial literacy education and we believe that mentorship, combined with education, is the way to make this real and actionable. so we very much hope to gain opportunities from this council. we definitely want to contribute our expertise and collaborate. and we -- so the idea of this council in terms of makinging financial education and literacy more real and to implement going forward. and i'm very honored to be a part of it. there's so much expertise in this room, it's very heartening to see and i look forward to working with all of you to make the recommendations of this council.

thank you. >> good morning. my name is carol and i'm president of davidson college. davidson recruits talented kids from all backgrounds and educates them for lives of leadership, service and disproportion ale impact. at davidson we work to make equal opportunity real. when we consider candidates for admission, we do so irrespective of their ability to pay and we meet demonstrated financial need for all admitted students through grants and campus. employment. i'm really privileged to be part of this group. i see myself in some sense as a bridge to higher education. so i'll talk about four roles that i hope to play on this council and four kinds of conversations that i hope i can inspire. first, i hope i can take the creative energy of this council

back to the higher ed sector and inspire conversations in different parts of that sector about how we can ensure that all of our students continue the education and financial literacy and financial capability that they should begin as toddlers. second, i hope that we can convene conversations with partners through shared davidson's commitment to access, to make sure that talented kids understand how to get to college, how they can pay for college, why college is worth it and can chart a meaningful course for themselves through the institution that they choose to attend. so davidson is committed to working with partners like quest bridge and the posse foundation and the college advising core and ed x and the college board and local schools. we work with c.m.s. to develop a pipeline to these talented kids that makes clear why college is affordable, why it's worth it and how their families can pay for it.

third and i think most interestingly, you know, the economy is changing rapidly in ways that i need to understand more clearly than i do. and we in higher education need to make sure that the education we offer is actually worth what it costs given the world our kids will enter. our kids are entering a world that's very different than the one i entered when i graduated from the university of chicago and they need to have had different classroom and experiential opportunities for the four years that we at davidson have them so they can succeed. so for example, we need to make sure that our curriculum is student centered and that from the moment our kids arrive on our campuses they're grabbling with questions to which no one knows the answer so that they are prepared to create their own job on tore entrepreneurials in an economy where the job they hold may not exist when they enter college. so reimagine the kind of education we offer so our

students develop the talents and capacities that they need to plan for themselves a meaningful life of financial independence and autonomy. this requires thinking about what we do in a serious and foundational way through the many different sectors of higher education. and then finally, i think we really need to convene conversations within higher ed about our institutional role at this moment in our country's history. what is the role of davidson razz an institution in promoting -- as an institution in promoting equal opportunity for all americans in a democratic society? we need to take much more opportunity for building strong, wide bridges to k-12 and for building strong, wide bridges to the employers our kids will see after they leave us. so this has in some sense a conversation where we rethink

our societal role as an institution. at davidson, we're privileged to be a conduit to the rest of the higher education sector for the conversations that take place within this commission. i can't tell you what a privilege it is to be here. i'm sure i'll learn more in an i contribute and thank you very uch for your time. >> good morning. i'm amy rosen. chairman rogers, it's good to see so many old friends around this table. i'd like to welcome our new members and say that i believe that the white house has really done an excellent job of adding assets to this group and i'm truly optimistic that our work will be impactful. also, i applaud the team at the white house for bringing to the table not only our friends from treasury, but secretary of ducation and director cordray, both great champions of this cause. i think together we will be stronger and certainly much

smarter for them being here as partners. for those of you that don't know me, i spent the last decade or so dedicated to helping those to even the playing field for all young americans being educated in public schools and ensure all have an opportunity for a high quality education. i proudly served as chair of kip schools in newark where high expectations and great educators are really proving what's possible. i run a global n.g.o. called the network for teaching entrepreneurship. we have worked with more than a half a million young people from economically challenged neighborhoods throughout the world to teach them the knowledge and skills necessary to really spark this entrepreneurial mindset that will be necessary for them to be able to plan for successful futures and find or create a job. as john bryant said, connecting school with real-life

opportunity or rather lack thereof is the leading reason that young people in america quit school. we are currently leading a research coalition to create an entrepreneurial mindset index which will hopefully be -- become an easy to use management tool and to incentivize others. as those of you that have been hanging around me, like marc morial, i believe we have an opportunity through the adoption of the common core by 48 states and now thanks again to my friend david coleman, a completely reimagined s.a.t. test to integrate not only key knowledge but to give young people an opportunity to act on that knowledge directly into everyday classes. my dream is that this work will become part of their everyday math and english classes. while i have no objections to financial education classes

which are electives and need to continue to do this work, i fear that exposure to them is far too random and dependent on what zip code a young child happens to be in. furthermore, we have learned the hard way if it's not tested, chances are it won't be consistently taught. and results of studies such as -- 's release by finra, ck up the notion that this hit and miss nature of this work is not enough. through the work of the last council, we have really proven that teachers and school leaders alike responded well to the the exemplars that they can align with the core and learn concepts embeded in their everyday curriculum. this council to move quickly to take that work to the next level through real actions. in addition, given the gravity of the issue and the incredible

opportunity that technology offers, to echo ted, there is an opportunity for new kinds of tools and perhaps more potential, a direct of conconsumer play through games, incentives for millions of young people to engage only their own p.d.a.'s. this panel really does have the ability to spark the ability of investors, educators and industry leaders to seriously invest in these efforts. lastly, i've spent much of this last year of doing a deep dive into of the grim picture of employment challenges that will people. our young we're moving -- in virtually every continent and with our u.s. youth employment numbers closing in on 20%, it's already three times as hard for a young american to get a job as an older adult. this is bound to get profoundly

worse as this world gets considerably younger. with adding another two billion young people with huge influxes from india, china and africa. there is a direct correlation between those who have financial knowledge and those that are able to be successful in the workplace or become job creators. nifty recently did an alumni study of our u.s. students all from high, free and reduced lunch program schools and their peers. they stayed in school lunger, they were employed at a higher rate. they formed businesses twice the national average and they just earned more than their peers. finally, burdening our college graduates with unpayable debt is unfair and immoral. making sure they can make well-informed decisions by the time they are 17 and faced with these choices must happen. this work is critical and will make a huge difference for literally millions of american young people. i'm grateful to president obama

for begin using the bully pulpit of his office as well as his personal time to shine a light and appoint this panel to make progress on behalf of the underserved young people in this country. >> thank you very much. i'm the c.e.o. of visa. i'm honored to represent our company on this council. i'm one of the new members. i'm from private sector obviously and i hope and think we can contribute to this very important effort. quite simply, financial education shouldn't and should not be something that's reserved for the few. you listen to the stories that some people have here and you listen to what we hear as we talk about people away from this room. and luck should not determine if you are capable of making financial decisions. and it's financial decisions which ultimately are a means to broader success. savings, not spention beyond your means, using credit

wisely, bank accounts, payment cards including debit, credit and prepaid cards, invests we believe are all core concepts and all need to understand these. some are complicated but they're understandable. and director cord, ray and the cfpb is making sure this is something we're supportive as well. quite frankly, when luke what's happened in the last five years, there's a dem only straighted need to move the education process forward within people's lives. proactively helping people be successful and preventing financial problems needs to be foundational in this country. as the global leader in electronic payments, visa is committed to enens hansing the financial capability of all americans. we invest in technologies that increase financial inclusion and enable greater financial responsibility. it's both our business and we also direct orr philanthropic

efforts towards this. our flagship financial literacy initiative, practical money skills for life is a free program to help parents, teachers, students and consumers of all ages learn learn the essential of financial management. for nearly two decades, visa has been a leader in developing innovative, public-private partnerships with governments, schools and banks and nongovernmental organizations to deliver free programs that help people effectively learn the fundamentals of personal finance, including budget, budgeting, saving, responsible spending and the wise use of credit. to date more than 30 million people have been reached through these education programs which are game-based, have extraordinary engagement and they just work. we partnered with 42 state governments to deliver free financial games to every middle and high school in each state. we've seen that financial education works in public-private partnerships can

be very effective here. fueling sustainable economic growth is the core of what visa does every day, and it's why championing greater financial flexibility is in our d.n.a. sustainability is achieved when there's an understanding of the consequences of people's actions, and we know this can be taught. our deep commitment to financial capability is rooted in this belief. for more than 15 years we've been helping parents and teachers bring personal financial education to millions of young americans. i look forward to contributing our thoughts and advancing this very worthy effort. >> good morning. thank you, chairman rogers, for this opportunity. i'd like to thank also president obama and his staff at the department of treasury for the opportunity to be here with you all. chavez, s anna maria

part of the girl scouts u.s.a. we create leaders and have been doing that for 102 years. i think this is morning is really important to highlight the fact that these issues around financial literacy skills is more important now than ever. i'd like to say that girl scouts has known the importance of facilitating these issues with girls for over a century, and what i'd like to do as representative of girl scouts is to bring the voice of the youth to this table. you know, i am very, very aware that the average age of my boss is 8 years old. they are very focused on ensuring that i understand what the skills that they need -- that they need every day come from the adults that surround them. our organization is powered by volunteers. these are individuals both men and women who dedicate their

lives to teach these amazing girls, that their voice matters. and the girls have taught us that they are not a problem to be solved but an investment to be made. i would like to also share that we've done a lot of research around girls and youth in this country, and we recently did a report, a survey that was done on american girls around financial literacy issues. both girl scouts and non-girl scouts, and what it revealed to us is that girls are very confident and optimistic about their financial futures but their current knowledge is not very high. they know that money's important but they don't know the financial principles and instruments to use and credit cards and what does that mean and unfortunately only 12% of girls surveyed say they feel confident about making financial decisions. so there's a disconnect. because i've also seen that girls, when they do have an

opportunity to create revenue, they invest it in incredible ways. we've run the largest entrepreneurial program for girls in the world. t's called our cookie program. and they raise $800 million in one quarter of the year. and it's all run by them. and they're investing back in their local community. they're funding all of your animal shelters, your comfort meal sites, senior centers, the local public parks. and they know that it's really important to give back. but clearly -- >> anna? >> you got $28 out of me last week. >> thank you. thank you. i appreciate that. so what i would like to say is that the work of the council is important because we got to connect the fact that girls and young men want to invest in this country but it will be tools and the opportunities for me to do so. what i'd like the council to achieve is really to identify

strategies to pilot financial opportunities for youth in this country. i also think it's important that we serve as conveners around this conversation. you know, i'm one of hundreds of nonprofits in this country working with youth every day. how do we scale the ideas that come out of this council so they're all focused and moving in the same direction? in addition, i think it's important that we do have the voice of the youth at the table today and in the future. because i see when adults, with all good intentions, get around the table and start creating solutions for the youth, sometimes there is a dishe connect if we don't understand -- disconnect if we don't understand what the youth want. i do think we need to go out and get the voice of the consumer, as we say, the youth in this country to really figure out what they want to develop and what they want to be partners in. so finally, i just like to say thank you for allowing girls to have a voice at this table. i will do my best to ensure that we represent them, to

bring data from our own research institutes, but also to serve as a convener around these important issues in this country. thank you. >> you can watch all of this online at c-span.org. we'll leave the last few minutes. the house is gaveling in for a brief session of one-minute speeches. legislative work will get under way at 3:30 eastern. eight bills on their calendar today, including four designed to alter in one way or another the 2010 health care law. also a measure calling for additional sanctions against russia for its occupation of cry mia. live house -- crimea. live house coverage here on c-span. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]