Why Finance?
The question first began to loom over me in the summer leading up to my Grade 12 year. With university brochures scattered across my desk and post-secondary ranking lists flooding my search bar, I couldn’t be more excited to apply to my dream schools.
But beneath that optimism was the daunting awareness that none of it came without a cost.
Tuition, residence, meal plans, and textbooks—the costs swelled until they towered over the modest savings I’d scraped together from birthday cards and part-time shifts. Trying to make sense of it all, I embarked on a journey towards financial literacy. However, I immediately ran headfirst into a wall of acronyms: RESPs, TFSAs, HISAs. Each one seemingly designed to be more confusing than the last.
Amid all the uncertainty, I was fortunate enough to know that my parents had opened and funded a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) in my name that would lessen the financial burden of my post-secondary education. However, I knew that this reality was not true for everyone. Many of my peers have parents who learned even less about financial literacy than we have, creating poor financial habits that continue to be passed down for generations.
In that moment, the gap became clear. Hundreds of thousands of students enter post-secondary education every year, expected to make major financial decisions without the tools to understand them.
Outside of one unit in the Grade 10 Math curriculum, Ontario high school students receive little financial literacy education, leaving them severely underprepared. Being unable to rely on traditional institutions, more students are turning to social media as the sole provider of their financial advice. The trend was clear, and a solution was urgent and unavoidable. Project WhyFi would seek to bridge this gap through accessible, informative, youth-focused personal finance education, empowering them with the skills needed to build a positive, symbiotic relationship with their money.
IMPACT
Together with my co-lead Matthew, we have dedicated ourselves over the past year to this vision across three distinct channels: within our high school, throughout our community, and across the globe.
Beginning at our High School, Bill Hogarth SS, we launched the Finance Club to deliver a free and approachable five-week program on navigating and demystifying the Canadian financial system. To our surprise, over 150 students not only showed up but also actively participated in our lessons and activities. Armed with the realization that Canadian youth were ready to take charge of their financial futures, we expanded our mission into the community.
Within York Region, we raised over $300 through a charity raffle for the Women’s Centre of York Region’s Financial Empowerment Program. Building on the Finance Club curriculum, we also led an introductory financial literacy workshop for over 100 Grade 8 students at Sam Chapman Public School.
We soon realised people across the world could benefit from our resources. In response, we built a digital platform including an Instagram campaign (@projectwhyfi) that has reached over 18,000 users, a financial literacy podcast titled “Work to Wealth,” steaming across major platforms, and a Udemy course titled “Financial Literacy Basics for Students,” that has enrolled 600+ students worldwide.
VISION
As I now prepare to begin my post-secondary journey, I feel confident in my ability to navigate my financial future. I am ready to embrace the next chapter of my life without fear. I dream that one day every Canadian student will feel the same way. From what I’ve learned throughout this campaign, if Canada wants to build a financially literate generation of young adults, financial education must be more than a one-off unit in Grade 10 math.
The financial landscape is constantly evolving, meaning that a stagnant and limited curriculum is not the solution. Financial education should begin earlier, adapt to student’s needs, global trends, and appropriately reflect the complexities of navigating post-secondary costs.
Furthermore, systemic change cannot just happen through classroom lessons. Schools should support other youth-led initiatives that meet students wherever and whenever. Initiatives like Project Whyfi are so transformative because they not only simplify finance, but also translate it, exchanging complicated jargon and terminology for simplified concepts and relatable examples. Lastly, we need to ensure that the tools already meant to support students, such as RESPs and FHSAs, aren’t just available, but visible for those who can benefit from them.
So, why finance?
Because students deserve to step into adulthood with more than hope, they deserve a plan.
How One Student Turned His RESP Into a Life-Saving Mission
Embark is Canada’s education savings and planning company. The organization aims to help families and students along their post-secondary journeys, giving them innovative tools and advice to take hold of their bright futures and succeed.
