Santa Maria students get a dose of ‘reality’ at financial literacy event

SANTA MARIA, Calif. – Hundreds of Santa Maria High School students were able to experience what it's like to budget personal funds during a financial literacy educational event held on Friday.

More than 750 freshman participated in the "Reality Fair' that took part throughout the day inside the school's Wilson Gym.

"Students were given a lesson in their science class regarding the importance of education, whether it's going to college, going to career technical school, and they were given a monthly budget," said Santa Maria 9th Grade counselor Terzino Gaeta. "They are going to seven different stations and either buying products or paying bills that they would pay as an adult so that they can see how far their money really goes."

For several minutes at a time, students visited the seven stations that were categorized in real life financial needs, such as utilities, insurance, food, transportation and entertainment.

Each student used an Excel spreadsheet that was downloaded onto their personal tablet and needed to budget their monthly expenses according to a previously determined fictitious paycheck, which was determined by a student's grade point average from the first semester.

"We had we had four different budget levels," said Gaeta. "We had a students with a bachelor's degree. That was a 3.0 to 4.0 GPA. Then we had an associate's technical degree. Then we had high school diploma and then, no high school diploma. It's to encourage them to go get that bachelor's degree and beyond. We went over in the classroom, the different education levels all the way up to even like a doctorate degree."

Helping out with the event were several professionals from local business, such as SESLOC Credit Union, American Automobile Association (AAA), Santa Maria Kia, PB & Associates Real Estate Services, Albertsons and Kohls.