What Happens When No One Teaches You How to Manage Money?

Image caption: Student mentors give back to their community through JA High School Heroes.

If you’re like the majority of Americans, nobody taught you how to budget for rent, insurance, and groceries. What if someone had?

That’s the question Junior Achievement of Central Virginia has been answering for students across our region for 60 years, and Financial Literacy Month in April gives us reason to pause and talk about what makes this work necessary.

Financial knowledge gaps cost Americans an estimated $948 per person each year and more than $240 billion nationwide. .At the same time, students sitting in classrooms today are still struggling to build those skills. Gen Z adults correctly answered just 38% of basic personal finance questions on average in 2025. Most Americans say they wish they had learned more about money in school, and many students still don’t have consistent access to financial education.

Where Junior Achievement Fits In

These are the students we show up for every day, and it starts earlier than you might think. At JACV, we meet students where they are: kindergarteners learn the difference between needs and wants in JA Ourselves, fifth graders connect their skills and dreams to the national economy during JA In A Day, and eighth graders explore career pathways available locally at Mission Tomorrow.

In high school, Junior Achievement Finance Park is where it all comes together. Students are handed a life scenario: a job, a salary, sometimes a family to support. Then they have to make it work: housing, transportation, utilities, food, insurance. The hands-on simulation doesn’t let you skip the hard parts.

“Volunteering with JA is the perfect opportunity for you to impart the financial knowledge that you wish you could have given to your younger self,” said Ashley Ward, a regular Finance Park volunteer from Capital One. “You are filling in the gaps that general education does not provide to the next generation of students. This is an incredibly powerful opportunity to make an active improvement in their futures.”

When a student realizes that choosing one apartment over another changes what they can afford for the rest of the month, no worksheet could have taught them that faster. We’re preparing young people for a world that won’t wait for them to figure it out on their own.

Image caption: Volunteers after a day supporting students at JA Finance Park.

Access is Making a Difference

Among Junior Achievement alumni, 82% say they have a strong financial footing thanks to JA curriculum, and 84% say their JA experience improved their financial literacy. That’s what happens when students are given access early.

When no one teaches you how to manage money, you learn the hard way—and that lesson can be expensive. We want every student in Central Virginia to have the chance to learn it before it matters.

When students have the opportunity to practice these decisions in a classroom, to ask questions, and to see how choices play out before they’re real, they build confidence alongside knowledge. They don’t just learn what money is. They learn how to use it.

This Financial Literacy Month, we’re grateful for the volunteers, partners, educators, and community members who make that possible across our region. If you’ve been thinking about getting involved, there’s no better time.