Financial Literacy and Advocacy

• ICYMI, Tim Ranzetta had two pieces hit Marketwatch this week. The first is an article explaining how excellent teachers will drive the financial literacy movement, and highlights several teachers you will recognize. The second is an opinion piece in which Tim quantifies the value of a high school personal finance class.
• Study Breaks’ Daniel Reed concurs with the need to make Personal Finance a high school graduation requirement. 
• Workers consistently underestimate the impact of debt on their financial well-being. The One Brief article on the latest Aon survey looks at the financial well-being of employees around the world. Employers are noticing.

"The good news: more and more employers are recognizing the importance of helping workers achieve financial wellbeing. Aon’s recent Global Financial Wellbeing Study found that 62 percent of multinational firms surveyed expect to have a global financial-wellbeing strategy in place within the next three years."

Paying for College

• Is college worth it? A study by Georgetown measures “return on investment” with some interesting outcomes. Included is a link to the ranking of 4500 schools! (Washington Post)
• Department of Education releases new College Scorecard with information by area of study/degree earned. (Inside Higher Education) This should certainly make this scorecard more useful.
• The New York Times (subscription) warns that you cannot trust the “Expected Family Contribution” generated when filing a FAFSA.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday warnings

• Warning number one: Don’t succumb to temptation if you carry a balance on your credit card. (Washington Post)
• Warning number two: Don’t fall for online scams with gift cards. (USA Today)

Career

• Forbes takes a look at women who successfully broke into the male-dominated field of welding.
• A new report offers analysis of microcredential completers. They are mostly educated folks in their 30s who use the online programs to advance their careers. (Inside Higher Education)
  

Investing

• Charles Schwab is in talks to buy TD Ameritrade (CNBC). TDA’s stock price dropped 25% when Schwab first announced its commissions were dropping to zero because commissions comprise a much larger share of their revenue than Schwab. Read Bloomberg for the backstory.
• We should all be aware of the 403(b) nightmare stories. A Teachable Moment’s Tony Isola illustrates another example that applies to any investment. “Free” can be very costly.
• If the females in your class are not taking you seriously, this might help. Investment News covered a talk by Sally Krawcheck that provides great detail on the gender investment gap.

Retirement

• Some nearing retirement may be 401k millionaires but they are taking a big risk by having too much in equity. Those target date funds are popular with younger folks. (Washington Post) 
• How much do you need to retire comfortably? Here is a look, by state, in case you want to fine-tune your retirement plan. (howmuch.net)

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