Program Overview

Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park™, the mobile version of JA Finance Park™, is a program dedicated to educating middle and high school students in the basics of financial literacy: budgeting, investing, managing risk - all while reinforcing the value of education and how it affects one’s future. Students become empowered with the skills and inspiration needed to create a better tomorrow for themselves and our community.

The experience begins in the classroom with a four-week curriculum covering a range of financial topics including saving and investing, taxes and salary, personal budgeting and career goals. The in-class curriculum culminates in a day-long, on-site, budgeting simulation held at Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park.

During the one-day simulation, each student becomes “an adult for the day” and is assigned a fictional life situation so they can experience firsthand the real-life challenges of making personal budgeting decisions for themselves and their family. After calculating their Net Monthly Income for the fictional salary they’ve received, and while mentored by adult volunteers, the students visit 19 business kiosks that each represent a different budget category such as housing, transportation, health insurance, groceries, and utilities. Through this interactive process, students grasp the relevance of what they learn in the classroom to the real world, and better understand the relationship between income and lifestyle.