Last Saturday, April 24th, the Maryland Council on Economic Education hosted the final round of the 2021 Maryland Personal Finance Challenge Competition.  The Maryland Personal Finance Challenge is an academic competition that provides high school students the opportunity to learn and then demonstrate knowledge and application of personal finance concepts during a one day academic competition.  Student teams from high schools across the state compete with the excitement of an athletic competition to be recognized as the Maryland State Champion.  The winning team is invited to represent Maryland at the National Personal Finance Challenge Competition.

Due to the pandemic, the 2021 competition was held completely virtually with student teams from across Maryland participating.   There were two rounds of the competition.  The first round consisted of a multiple choice test taken by all members of each team.  The top six scoring teams were then invited to the finals round.  The teams who earned a spot in the finals round were given two hours to review and prepare and present a case study analysis live via Zoom platform.  Judging the student presentations were Sherrice Davis, Vice President of M&T Bank, Andy Bauer, Vice President and Regional Executive for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and Dr. Melissa Groves, Economics Professor at Towson University.

The competition was fierce and the presentations given by the student teams far exceeded expectations.  The 2021 Champion Team who will advance to represent Maryland in the National Personal Finance Challenge in May is Team AOF1 from the Applications and Research Lab (Howard County Public Schools).  Dr. Maddy Halbach advised the team. Congratulations to all who participated and to our generous sponsors for supporting this wonderful program!