Intuit’s Focus on Financial Literacy in 2023

It’s April once again, and Intuit is celebrating Financial Literacy Month with a focus on helping students, individuals, and small businesses develop financial habits and improve their financial literacy. Named by The World Economic Forum as one of the most critical, durable skills every student needs to succeed, financial literacy helps to prepare people for the jobs of the future, so they can live more successful and prosperous lives. 

Our work is especially critical in schools today: 52% of Gen Z kids want to be smarter financially—the highest percentage of any generation—however 75% of teens lack confidence in their knowledge of personal finance.  And although they’re motivated to expand their knowledge and ability in this area, many simply don’t know where to start.

While basic skills such as budgeting, investing, and understanding taxes help to promote financial independence, unfortunately, financial literacy isn’t equally accessible to all. The problem is particularly prevalent among students of color and those living in low-income households. Such inequality when it comes to durable life skills such as problem solving, leadership, communication and of course, financial literacy, can put these individuals at a significant disadvantage.

The Wealth Gap Widens

The absence of personal finance courses in education contributes to the racial wealth gap, which continues to widen:

• High schools with more than 75% Black or Hispanic students are 50% less likely to guarantee a personal finance course, compared to schools with less than 25% ‌Black or Hispanic students.
• In high schools with more than 75% of students receiving free and reduced meals, just 5% of students will be guaranteed to take a personal finance course.

However, according to the 2023 State of Financial Education Report from Next Gen Personal Finance, progress is being made to make financial literacy courses available to more students, across the board: 

• 18 states now require a semester-long personal finance course for graduation, up from only 6 in 2022.
• 8 states have fully implemented personal finance course offerings today (Iowa, Utah, Missouri, Tennessee, North Carolina, Mississippi, Virginia, Alabama)
• 10 states are in process of implementing a personal finance course (Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Kansas, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina)
• Outside of these 18 states, only 10% of high school students will take a personal finance course to graduate.
• 40.5% of US public high school students will be guaranteed to take a Personal Finance course when all 17 states have fully implemented such courses (up from 23.6% in 2022).

These statistics are encouraging, but more work must be done. Partnerships with private sector entities such as Intuit promise to help make financial literacy an equal opportunity goal. 

Prosperity Hubs Make Financial Literacy Education Equitable

Intuit’s mission is to power prosperity around the world—and that goes beyond our product offerings. Through key partnerships, innovative programs, tools and resources, we are positively impacting the state of financial literacy education and enabling students to prepare for independent life and work. 

Intuit’s Prosperity Hub School Districts program seeks to empower students in 21 underrepresented school districts across nine counties with real-world tools and skills by providing access to free Intuit tools and products, programs, training, and funding. More than 1.6 million students are enrolled, and nearly 80% of the students in our Prosperity Hub School Districts identify as being underrepresented minorities. By leveraging our products, expertise and scale, we strive to make a positive impact on these underserved communities and help people overcome difficult challenges so they can thrive and prosper.

• Students gain access to free courses, content, competitions, and classroom mentors as they build durable, financial literacy skills needed to compete for jobs. 
• Teachers benefit from professional development and gain experience with teaching entrepreneurship and personal finance education.
• Administrators learn the same methodologies used by the most innovative companies to create and maintain a more effective learning environment.
• Custom programming and resources ensure that the unique needs of each school district are met.

As part of the Prosperity Hub School Districts program, our latest Social Innovation Challenge engaged over 2000 students inspired by the prompt, “How might we help your school be more sustainable?” And, at the end of 2022, Intuit expanded its partnership with the Suh Family Foundation in Portland, through which we’re delivering training and workshops on financial education to students across five of the nation’s most  underserved school districts. Intuit will pair its expertise on essential personal finance topics, including taxes, savings and budgeting, with expertise from the Suh Family Foundation in wealth building, credit management and investing.

Building Foundations in Financial Literacy 

As a key part of our corporate responsibility focus, we’re helping students develop their financial literacy through Intuit’s education programming, gaining the personal finance skills needed to succeed in their future jobs. We are committed to the goal of better preparing 5 million students for jobs by the year 2025, and to date, we’ve engaged more than 1.9 million students in our products and programs.

Our Intuit Financial Literacy Foundations online workshops help educators introduce their students to the foundations of personal finance, and our programs include personal hands-on simulations of TurboTax, and QuickBooks, to help students build confidence and develop smart money habits and skills. Our partnership with Kahoot! enables us to create financial literacy games that are relatable, engaging and accessible to everyone, while our partnership with Quizlet provides flashcards, practice tests and other study tools to help students improve their grades on the Intuit Quickbooks certification exam.

Intuit’s educational offerings include real-world simulations and toolkits to help students expand their financial knowledge and build real-world experience. Offered in both English and Spanish, the TurboTax simulation teaches the basics of tax preparation, including topics such as the gig-economy, tax education credits, crypto and investing, helping to build students’ confidence and reduce their fear of tax day. QuickBooks Online, Intuit’s cloud accounting software, is available for free to educators, for teaching students how to simulate a business or start a real one. 

Paving the Way for Financial Literacy and Health

With an eye toward the future, Intuit continues to expand its programs to make financial education available to more students. Scholarships are available through our TurboTax scholarship program, which provides scholarships to help empower students at our Prosperity Hub School Districts and through the #LeadingConEducación program, which provides scholarships to the next generation of Latinx students through their personal finance journey. Last year, more than 1,300 students applied for our scholarship programs, and we awarded them to 40 students. This year, we plan to double that number to 80, for a total of 120 scholarships in just two years.

Intuit is also delivering the Financial Literacy Foundations Course to JROTC Air Force cadets in the US and in military bases abroad. The course consists of tools, articles and real-world examples designed to build a strong foundation for financial confidence. There are more than 100,000 cadets in the JROTC Air Force system, and the majority come from under-resourced backgrounds. Additionally, Intuit is a founding corporate partner of the Congressional Award Foundation’s (CAF) Diversity & Inclusion Initiative. 

During Financial Literacy Month, we’ll be continuing to share tips, insights, tools and resources for individuals and small businesses in the hopes of building their financial literacy confidence and skill sets. Intuit strives to help educators, small business owners and consumers build healthy financial habits to last a lifetime.

Learn more about Intuit’s financial education programs and our Prosperity Hub School Districts, at the Financial Literacy Month resource page or the Intuit Job Readiness microsite.