Co-hosts of the “Earn Your Leisure” (EYL) podcast are bringing more financial education to the masses, and it’s a full-circle moment.
During an interview with Bloomberg, Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings revealed they are piloting financial literacy courses in 10 public high schools in the Bronx neighborhood in New York City. Reflecting on their own adolescence, they recalled the lack of exposure to such education. They have also observed minimal change in the schools today, reinforcing the importance of the curriculum.
“If you think about New York City, the capital of capitalism, but financial literacy is not mandatory in schools, and the school that we went to, there was no financial literacy 20 years ago, and there’s no still financial literacy to this day,” Bilal, a financial advisor, explained, according to Bloomberg. “So, we developed a financial literacy curriculum for different modules: investing and financial literacy; entrepreneurship; savings; investing; credit.”
EYL’s Financial Literacy Curriculum Will Debut in 10 Public Schools The Bronx pic.twitter.com/fKlCNqZZlX
— Earn Your Leisure (@EarnYourLeisure) March 7, 2024
Bilal and Millings have long prioritized high school students in their endeavors. Before launching their widely popular platform, the pair had taught high school students in the South Bronx about stock ownership.
In a 2021 Facebook post, EYL shared a throwback to one of their former sessions with the caption, “We will never forget the essence from which we emerged. 2018, Teaching stock ownership in the South Bronx to high school kids before we had a platform. Some start movements online but we started EYL on the ground, going places for free that most wouldn’t go if they were paid. #EYLUniversity.”
Millings, a former educator from the Bronx, alluded to their early beginnings and described their participation in public schools with their initiative as a full circle moment.
“We started teaching young adults about the importance of financial education. And so to come back, especially the Bronx, as you know, we were both born and raised outside the Bronx, but ended up teaching there. So it is gonna be a full circle moment, and we’re excited,” Millings told the outlet.
Looking ahead, Bilal and Millings plan to expand their reach from 10 schools to the entire Bronx school district in 2025.
