Driving Financial Education in Houston

HOUSTON, April 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On the eve of Financial Literacy month, Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas announced that Capital One Financial Corporation provided the organization with a permanent Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park™ valued at over $300,000 for middle grades and high school students participating in Junior Achievement programs.

The facility, a mobile interactive classroom where local students learn basic money management skills, will be designated specifically for metropolitan Houston, Beaumont and other communities served by Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas.  Because it is mobile, the unit can travel to different parts of the region year-round, enabling it to be stationed close to the schools it will serve.

The Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park™ program begins with four weeks of intensive in-classroom financial education lessons developed by Junior Achievement. Students then have the opportunity to put their newly learned money management skills to the test. This innovative learning environment, called Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park™, houses a mock city where students can experience the challenges of making real-life decisions about their finances.

While at Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park™, the students are assigned fictional jobs, incomes, families and expenses. They are then expected to develop and to manage their own individual budgets. Students are faced with choices about housing, transportation, savings, furnishings, investments, food, entertainment, phone, cable, and charitable contributions -- all of the decisions they will ultimately make upon entering adulthood.

"We are thrilled to have Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park™ as a permanent addition to our JA curriculum in Southeast Texas," said Rick Franke, president of Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas. "Thanks to the generosity of Capital One, we will be able to offer this innovative financial education experience to local students year-round."

Since 2008, Capital One has partnered with Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas to sponsor Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park™ in the Houston area.  The unit visited the Greater Houston Region for several weeks in 2008 and 2009, providing approximately 6,500 local middle and high school students with a fun, hands-on opportunity to learn about managing their personal finances.  In the future, approximately 10,000 students will be able to visit the new Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park™ facility on an annual basis.

Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas provides education programs for students in grades K-12 reaching over 209,000 students in nearly 800 schools annually.  For more information, visit http://houston.ja.org.

SOURCE Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas