The Ripple Effect of Personal Finance Education

Next GenTim Ranzetta, Co-Founder of nonprofit Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF), talks with Patricia O’Connell about how their free curriculum educates and empowers not just students but families and teachers

TIC: Tim, you weren’t a teacher by training. How did you end up teaching personal finance to high school students?

TR: I’m an entrepreneur by background and spent five years as a stay-at-home dad. I was looking for ways to engage in education because I thought there were tremendous opportunities to improve the education system, and one of them was “let’s make this more relevant to young people.”

And it was just serendipity that led me to visit this high school, Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, and ask the principal and the founder “how can I help?” He saw that I had two degrees in business and said, “Well, you seem to know something about money. How about starting a personal finance class?”

TIC: So personal finance wasn’t on your radar as a subject to teach?

TR: Not at all. I built and delivered 25 hours of curriculum and saw how incredibly engaged the students were. They were full of questions and eager to understand how money works. Most hadn’t learned this at home or in school.

But looking back, the seeds of being interested were planted when I was seven. My neighbor broke her hip walking her dog down late one night, and my parents were like, “Hey, Tim, you've got to go walk Mrs. Battiston's dog.” And I walked Dice three times a day for $5 a week.

I remember walking into that bank every Friday to deposit my money, and the tellers’ eyes just lit up because there was a seven-year-old kid who was starting a savings habit.

TIC: How did you go from volunteering to building Next Gen Personal Finance?

TR: I taught for eight years and about three years into that process I said, “Let's go create an organization to put all this in action,” because once you've seen how eager the students are to take this knowledge and act on it, you can’t unsee it and you realize this is going to have a tremendous economic effect.

Every bit of it—our curriculum, teacher training, and ongoing support—is provided at no cost. If we’re serious about reaching every student, we have to remove the barriers. We add about 20,000 new teachers every year, mostly because once a teacher tries our materials and sees how students respond, they tell their colleagues.

In addition to supporting teachers and schools in educating high school students about personal finance, we also have an initiative aimed at getting personal finance taught in every high school in the country.

And it’s so important. I talked about the impact on students and their parents, there's what I call the trifecta effect. The third person who's is the teacher. We hear from teachers daily, and they tell us they are more passionate about teaching and are also learning useful information for themselves.

TIC: What surprised you in teaching the class?

TR: The ripple effect. Parents emailed me saying their kids were bringing lessons home and sparking dinner table conversations. That’s when I realized that if we could bring personal finance to every high school student, we wouldn’t just be helping them—we’d be helping their families, too.

TIC: Had you expected it to have such an impact beyond the classroom?

TR: I knew it would be impactful for students, especially juniors and seniors—many of whom have part-time jobs and are just beginning to earn and save. But then parents were suddenly hearing about budgeting, taxes, Roth IRAs, and in many cases, having open discussions about money with their kids for the first time.

Parents are more comfortable talking about the birds and the bees than they are their financial situation, but for whatever reason, when the students come home and the parents ask that inevitable question, “Hey, what did you learn in school today,” the students came alive on this subject.

TIC: Money is often seen as a very black and white thing—you either have $50 or you don’t. But it’s also deeply emotional, isn’t it?

TR: Exactly. It’s not just about dollars and cents. It’s about feelings, habits, and sometimes even fears. That’s why one of the first units in our course is about the psychology of money. Understanding your relationship with money is foundational. And it's worth noting that about 80% of the 120,000 teachers who use our curriculum are women. So now we’re seeing a generational ripple effect—female teachers serving as role models for female students, showing that personal finance isn’t just for guys. It’s for everyone.

TIC: You’ve mentioned a “ripple effect” more than once. Have you seen evidence of that beyond your anecdotal experience?

TR: A study in Peru found that parents of students who learned personal finance picked up the same lessons—especially when the student was a daughter. We’ve seen similar things here in the U.S. Students take what they learn and pass it on to their families. It’s one of the most powerful aspects of what we do.

TIC: How widespread is your program now?

TR: We estimate we’re in about 15,000 to 17,000 schools across all fifty states. The 120,000 teachers using our curriculum who reach roughly 85% of U.S. high school students. What’s most incredible is that it’s all grown by word of mouth.

TIC: How do you balance teaching what’s useful now to students vs. what they’ll need later in life?

TR: You have to make it relevant for it to really stick. Believe it or not, many students at 17 or 18 don't have a savings account, even though many, many students have part-time jobs. We're talking about the first steps in getting started. We're talking about things like how do you read a pay stub? How do you deal with taxes? Can you set up a Roth IRA? If we're talking about Roth IRAs, we better make sure we're talking about investing.

TIC: If I had to choose between geometry and personal finance in high school, I know what I’d pick.

TR: You’re not alone. People often say, “I remember the Pythagorean theorem, but I don’t know how to manage my online bank account.” That disconnect is exactly what we’re trying to fix. One of the challenges with digital money is how easy it is to spend without thinking. So, we emphasize awareness, impulse control, and recognizing the psychological tricks platforms use—things like “Buy Now” buttons or fake scarcity.

That’s why we start with attitudes and mindsets—because spending today is frictionless, and delaying gratification is harder than ever. We help students build awareness of their habits, emotions, and biases. Self-knowledge and self-discipline are critical life skills. They pay dividends not just financially, but in all areas of life.

TIC: Much of what you’re doing seems to come down to empowerment.

TR: That’s exactly it. If we can give young people the tools and confidence to take control of their financial futures, we’re not just helping individuals. We’re strengthening families, communities, and ultimately, our economy.