This financial education program is enjoying significant success in North Carolina, which is the third state to offer this opportunity to its credit union employees. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania preceded North Carolina. In those other two states, the results of the program were impressive; so much so that the program sponsors decided to offer the program again and expand the participant pool to include employees in non-credit union industries, such as school districts and government employees. Therefore, NC joins WI and PA in offering the IEiYW program to 6000 current participants among the three states!

It is important to note that North Carolina's success is again confirming what was discovered in WI and PA: that this employee education model is effective and desirable, which is spurring other states to request inclusion in upcoming IEiYW programs.

In the first five weeks, North Carolina has experienced a participation rate of

Eighteen months ago, I was unemployed and struggling. I was doing little unfulfilling jobs here and there while looking for full-time work. The eighteen months prior to that had been some of the most financially difficult of my life. My accumulated consumer and academic debt seemed insurmountable. My family and friends had done all they could to help. I had not yet earned my undergraduate degree. I had experienced failure after failure. I could not see how I would apply my years of study and professional experience to alleviating my own situation, much less to realizing my desire to be an agent for positive change in other people.

And then my friend John Hoffmire re-introduced me to

Thanks to funding from the Investor Protection Trust and the strong leadership, support, and partnership of Progress Through Business, the Pennsylvania Office of Financial Education, the Pennsylvania Securities Commission, the Pennsylvania Credit Union Association, and Precision Information/The Educated Investor, in just over 12 weeks, credit union employees in Pennsylvania have thoroughly enjoyed training on topics related to the basics of personal finance and investing. They have shown remarkable participation rates, improvements in knowledge, and we're looking forward to seeing impressive improvements in financial attitudes and behaviors.

Here are some high-level stats as of 1:39AM Eastern on 12/18/2010

Finding its origin in Wisconsin, where it was also known as the REAL Progress and Pathways to Prosperity (or RP3) program, the Investor Education in Your Workplace program in Pennsylvania is in full swing! Pennsylvania is the first state to follow in Wisconsin's footsteps.

In its fourth week in Pennsylvania, program participants are already showing an amazing positive response, which indicates a repetition of what was experienced in Wisconsin: namely, an impressive increase in financial knowledge, and more importantly, a significant positive impact on financial behavior.

As of Monday evening (10/25):
1. 4682 courses have been passed with up to 120 individuals having completed all 10 RP3 courses already!
2. 28 out of 38 participating credit unions are on or ahead of pace (this week’s goal is: 30% of all courses passed by 10/29). The program, as a whole, is right on track.
3. Knowledge improvement has remained high at 24.53 points or 40.63%.

Though we expect the number of students to continue fluctuating, as of the moment the above stats were generated, there are 2086 people registered in the program.

Progress Through Business is a key partner in this program. Other key partners are: Precision Information/The Educated Investor, the Pennsylvania Credit Union Association, the Pennsylvania Securities Commission, the Pennsylvania Office of Financial Education, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Investor Protection Trust.

"Precision Information (PI) is passionate about its mission, which is to publish interactive educational experiences to enrich the lives of the individuals and organizations we serve." As publishers of the Educated Investor line of products, we are a "provider of interactive financial education products" such as the Educated Investor University, the Educated Investor Financial Success Suite, and numerous financial education products on CD-ROM, all of which have spawned our newest and VERY exciting product: the new MoneyCoach! For more information about PI, please see: http://www.educatedinvestor.com/index.html.

I am Helaman Berrios. My membership and involvement with Progress Through Business led to my employment with PI, which has partnered with PTB on various financial education initiatives:

As reported on May 14, 2010 during the Wisconsin Credit Union League's Annual Convention, the "Investor Education in Your Workplace" (IEYW) program, dubbed the "REAL Progress and Pathways to Prosperity" (RP3) project in Wisconsin, helped participants' practice of saving in an IRA go from 49% of participants to 75% of participants in just 22 weeks! This significant positive change in financial attitude and behavior is a reflection of various other financial attitudes and behaviors that were measured as part of the study.