Some teachers are probably thinking, “Of course they do! Every single student has one! And they message all class long with those darn things…” But seriously, at the NGPF offices yesterday, we were taking stabs at what percent of high school students have smartphones. We were thinking about it in terms of a workshop we’re presenting at the FBLA National Conference in July, and whether we could rely on students having instant internet access. I did some digging, and though I couldn’t find anything more recent, this Education Week article, based on this more in-depth survey from two years ago, puts the number at 51% of high school students bringing a smartphone to school daily.

Why is this of interest to personal finance teachers? I can think of a few reasons:

• To keep your curriculum current, you need to be talking about mobile banking. And, if your students have checking accounts and smartphones, they may already have some experience. Shameless plug to our free lesson on Online and Mobile Banking.
• What about the ever-growing app store with all types of financial products to help you budget, cut coupons, manage your money, keep track of spending, invest, etc?
• Not to mention the comparison shopping you can do with the Amazon barcode scanner app and access to the whole Internet on your phone. Shopping in-store at Target a few months ago, my husband got the lower Target online price for an item over what they were charging in-store just by showing his phone to customer service.
• And, of course, the more students who have smartphones, the more you can rely on classroom activities like instant polling, if your school district allows device usage during class. According to the same survey, 16 percent of parents say their children are allowed to use a mobile device in school. 

So, around this time two years ago, 51% of high school students had a smartphone. Something tells me that number has done nothing but rise in the past two years. Let me know in the comments if you’ve found more recent data. Happy Financial Literacy Month!

About the Author

Jessica Endlich

When I started working at Next Gen Personal Finance, it's as though my undergraduate degree in finance, followed by ten years as an educator in an NYC public high school, suddenly all made sense.