Bank of America collaborates with Entrepreneur High School to strengthen students’ financial literacy

In its third year of operation, Entrepreneur High School (EHS), located in San Bernardino, presented a five-week financial literacy speaker series to its students, a collaboration with finance experts at Bank of America.

Bank of America Consumer Bank Market Leader Oscar Cortez began collaborating with EHS Principal Michael Padilla to develop a comprehensive financial literacy program tailored to high school students.

“Previously, we had lessons available called, ‘Better Money Habits,’ a free financial literacy program for students and non-profits alike, so we built off of that and generated a couple of courses for Mr. Padilla to review and it really fell in line with what the high school is teaching its students,” said Cortez.

Some topics covered in the speaker series include checking account basics, the importance of savings accounts, credit, emergency funds, wants versus needs, and how to start a small business.

“In the five-week program, we spent the first two weeks learning how to start a small business. We showed students how to create a business plan and helped them understand their own personal finances in regard to starting a business,” continued Cortez.

On the high school front, Padilla expressed much interest in expanding the school’s collaboration with Bank of America, now and in the future.

“We believe all students should be financially literate. I want to work with Bank of America to expand on our five-part speaker series to build even further on our students’ financial literacy. Students don’t know how to budget and we want to get our students off on the right foot during and after high school,” said Padilla.

Aside from the business component, Padilla expressed how important it is for students to learn about credit scores.

“This speaker series really helped our students understand what credit is and how a credit score can affect you from getting a loan. It’s been all about forging a connection to the real world and Bank of America has done a great job teaching our students to budget and finance in multiple areas such as businesses, LLC’s and corporations,” concluded Padilla.

While the speaker series was well received by the school’s principal and teachers, the general consensus from students was highly rated, especially from students in the school’s entrepreneurship pathway.

“The students were motivated and had a better understanding about the resources they have available to them in the community to help them accomplish their goals; whether it’s personal finances or personal business. Our goal is to help students and non-profits in San Bernardino, Rialto and beyond to improve their financial life and ensure that they’ll make decisions that are going to positively impact their financial future,” concluded Cortez.