According to Enriched Academy’s co-founder, Kevin Cochrane, the two most talked about subjects right now are COVID-19 and money.
In light of this Cochrane and his team have decided to offer Enriched Academy’s online financial literacy course for free until the end of June.
“Money was always a challenge for a lot of Canadians — six out of 10 Canadians live paycheck to paycheck and this (crisis) has amplified that problem by a lot,” said Cochrane.
“So why not provide this education to parents for their kids for free? We’ve unlocked all the education, there’s no hidden agenda, no upsell. We’re just unlocking it until the end of June. Absorb it and learn from it. We’ve had thousands of students log in and take the course and the feedback is spectacular.”
Those interested can go to enrichedacademy.com and click the Free Course button on the top right corner of the homepage and begin at their leisure.
Cochrane added the online course is geared toward students 14-years-old and older, though he said it’s never too early to learn about money.
“We’re just never taught about money and the only reason we ever want to learn about money is when we’re in our early 20s and realize our parents can’t financially bail us out of our problems anymore. It’s up to us, and we’re like, ‘Why didn’t anybody teach me?” said Cochrane.
“This course was designed specifically for students not to become victims of debt long term. This teaches them everything they should learn before they go into the real world.”
The online course came after a decade of Cochrane and his business partner doing free presentations at high schools as a way to improve their own public speaking skills.
He said the first events weren’t well-received by students, with audience members’ eyes glazing over with boredom as the pair tried to educate them on handling finances.
“You realize money is a dry subject and if you talk to a bunch of teenagers about retiring at 65, they figure they’re going to be dead by 25, so it doesn’t really hit a nerve for them to want to learn,” Cochrane said with a laugh.
“It took us years to dial in a really good hour of presentation, whether it’s about investment properties or saving money, we really got good at unlocking the code to speaking to students about money.”
After the presentations became more engaging the parents took notice and starting asking for something they could use at home to help teach their kids.
That’s when they decided a program should be developed, back in the day of DVDs, and Cochrane and his partner started selling the video course for $200 to those eager about learning financial literacy.
“We did really well with it. We got on the show Dragons’ Den and did well on the show too. Obviously we don’t do DVDs anymore, we’re an online curriculum and it’s been spectacular.”