Why Lifestyle Math?

Make Personal Finance More Meaningful. Help Students
Connect It to Their Own Future.

California’s mandate requires students to take a Personal Finance course. Lifestyle Math meets the mandate and goes further by helping students understand why those financial concepts matter to the life they want to create.

The course integrates three important areas of student success:

Personal
Finance
+
Career
Exploration
+
Educational
Planning

Built on a Proven Approach

The proven process behind Lifestyle Math grew out of the highly successful Budget Exercise in Career Choices and Changes.

For decades, that activity has asked students to envision the lifestyle they want, determine what it will cost, and then use that financial reality to make more informed decisions about their careers and education.

Career Choices and Changes has transformed the educational trajectory of more than 3 million students, many of whom have participated in the course through dual enrollment opportunities.

Lifestyle Math builds on that proven approach and expands it into a comprehensive Personal Finance course designed for today’s students.

It Starts With Each Student’s Lifestyle Number

As students learn the essential personal finance concepts required by the AB 2927 mandate, they research the real-world costs of the adult lifestyle they envision for themselves—housing, transportation, food, insurance, taxes, savings, entertainment, and other expenses.

From this work, each student calculates a personal Lifestyle Number:

The income they will need to support the life they envision.

That number makes financial literacy personal and purposeful, so it also becomes the ideal launch pad for career exploration.

Connecting Lifestyle to Career

Students’ questions shift. They no longer think in terms of “What do I want to be when I grow up?” and start thinking in terms of:

What careers interest me?
What do those careers pay?
Will that income support the lifestyle I want?
How can I prepare myself for those careers?

Students begin connecting their career choices to the financial realities of the future they envision.

Lifestyle
Cost
$ $
Income
JOB
Career

Connecting Career to Education

Once students understand the relationship between education, skills, and earning potential, they identify careers that interest them and investigate the education, credentials, certifications, and/or training required.

Along the way, Lifestyle Math helps students understand:

Costs associated with postsecondary education and training options
Financial strategies for making their educational goals achievable
Financial aid and scholarships
Student loan options and the long-term impact of student loan debt
A range of education and training options

Students don’t just hear, “You should go to college.” They discover for themselves what education or training their goals require, what it will cost, and how they can make it happen—turning their vision for a career into a plan for their future.

One Course. Three Vital Student Success Outcomes.

Financial
Literacy

Students learn concepts and strategies that support informed financial decisions.

+

Career
Exploration

Students connect careers and earning potential to their personal goals.

+

Educational
Planning

Students identify the education and training needed to reach their career and lifestyle goals—and start building a plan.

And through dual enrollment, they can begin that educational journey by earning college credit while still in high school.

Links to learn more about how your college can turn California’s Personal Finance graduation requirement into a dual enrollment opportunity—for ALL students.

Academic Innovations LLC

Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. We’re proud to work alongside these national nonprofit organizations:

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