C&F provides curriculum supplement to 32 schools

Recently, students at 32 area high schools completed activities to learn about credit from the banker’s side of the desk.

Thanks to an innovative curriculum supplement that uses video to simulate loan interviews, students role-play the job of a lender, analyzing loan applications, reviewing credit reports and calculating disposable income.

At the end of the role-play, students compare their decisions with a banker’s. In this learn-by-doing exercise, young adults teach themselves the value of good credit, how to determine their own capacity to borrow and repay, and what they can do as young adults to build a good credit history.

Aptly named “How To Do Your Banking,” the curriculum supplement also allows students to practice checking account management, develop savings strategies and create personal budgets. The supplement is sponsored as a public service of C&F Bank to area high schools.

“We feel it is important that young adults have a chance to practice money management in the classroom, where mistakes won’t cost real dollars,” said Maureen Medlin, C&F director of marketing.

“Recent surveys indicate that 80 percent of high school students want instruction in financial matters and that such education is among the top three subjects parents want taught to their children,” Medlin added.

Faculty members volunteer to teach the program within their consumer economics, consumer science, business education or personal finances curriculum.

“By sponsoring this program we are reaching our young people as they are entering the work force and first needing financial services. If we can help them learn good money habits right from the start and raise their level of financial responsibility, it will pay big dividends for them and the community alike,” said Medlin.