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This article provides a brief overview of the field of financial education and explores some of the challenges and potential solutions. The author describes developments in the contemporary financial education movement since the 1990s and the background economic changes that stimulated its growth; reviews currently available financial education initiatives for youth and adults and discusses the evidence about its effectiveness as well as broader challenges for the field. The article concludes by highlighting both general and specific examples of efforts to move the field forward.

This article provides a plain-language description of behavioral economics and the role of common biases in financial decisionmaking, and reviews ways in which the findings of behavioral economics can help structure financial education and public policy.

This article presents best practices and lessons learnt from on the experiences of the National Endowment for Financial Education® (NEFE), a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan and noncommercial foundation committed to increas- ing access to financial education and to empowering in- dividuals to make positive and sound financial decision.

This article discusses the results of and lessons learnt from the Financial Opportunities Project (FOP), a comprehensive effort by the Center for Economic Progress identify, implement, and disseminate strategies for integrating financial services and asset-building opportunities with community-based tax-preparation services at IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites.

This article provides an overview of bank-based financial education. The role of banks more generally is reviewed, and examples of Marshall and Isley (M&I) Bank's Consumer Education (CE) program are discussed. Evaluation methods used by M&I are described. Key factors for success include clearly defined priorities, a standardized high-quality curriculum, appropriately designed delivery, well-integrated assessment and evaluation, effective community partnerships and a willingness to provide supporting tools.

This short article briefly summarizes and provides a link to the final report on the FDIC Survey of Bank Efforts to Serve the Unbanked and Underbanked. The survey was conducted in 2008 and the report was released in 2009. The FDIC retained Dove Consulting to help administer the survey of banks during 2008. The voluntary survey consisted of mail-in questionnaires administered to a stratified random sample of about 1,300 banks. The nationally representative sample was selected from the population of federally insured banks and thrifts with retail branch operations.

In a small a financial education pilot at Oh Day Aki Charter School in Minneapolis involving one teacher and about 100 middle and high school students, results suggest that that standard financial education materials can be adapted to benefit Native students in an urban setting, despite pre-existing educational challenges that are typical of inner-city schools, such as high turnover and low reading skills. The pilot's sponsoring partners hope to build on the lessons learned in order to further promote financial education for Native youth.

This article reviews research on the effectiveness of general financial literacy training to draw implications for literacy training related to predatory lending. The article concludes that training offered by high schools and workplaces is associated with improved financial knowledge and behavior, especially for low-income or less-educated recipients. Although evidence on homeowner education and counseling is less clear cut, the article concludes that financial literacy training has the potential to curb predatory lending.

About 10 million American households do not use any aspect of the banking system. A large body of research provides evidence that limited involvement in the mainstream financial sector is most common among low- and moderate-income (LMI) households. Although their income may be relatively low, these individuals hold assets and regularly conduct financial transactions, frequently with nonbank financial companies.