JOHN YANG: A recent poll by the website MarketWatch found that 65 percent of those surveyed said personal finances are their biggest source of stress.

Knowing how to budget and save money are skills that can help but not everyone is taught how to manage their money.

Only 25 states require high school students to take a personal finance class in order to graduate and the schools with predominantly black and brown students are less likely to offer those courses.

Laura Barron-Lopez reports on how younger generations are working to improve their financial literacy and help close the wealth gap.

It's part of our ongoing coverage of race matters.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: In the U.S., the racial wealth gap is stark.

According to the Brookings Institute, the median wealth for a white household is $188,200, nearly eight times more than the average black household, which is just over $24,000.

And experts predict that without improved financial literacy, that gap will only grow.

We spoke with black Americans about the obstacles they faced on their journey to financial success.

CHARLES WINFREY: My name is Charles Winfrey.

I'm a freshman business finance major here at Morehouse College.

CAPRICIA SAMPSON: My name is Capricia Sampson, and from Paterson, New Jersey.

I'm 27 years old, and I started my career as a design consultant in tech.

ALYSSA CABEZAS: My name is Alyssa Cabezas.

I am originally from Vicksburg, Mississippi.

I am 23 years old.

And I currently work at JPMorgan doing commercial banking, CAPRICIA SAMPSON: I grew up in a two parent household with four siblings, and was introduced to money in a way where my parents really wanted to steal their part as a financial literacy and also just education and hard work.

So my dad, at some point, he was like, you need to learn the value of $1.

And with that, he would give me an allowance for doing chores around the house.

Every two weeks.

CHARLES WINFREY: My family comes from finance.

So I was really had that exposure early on to a lot of money finance business talks.

ALYSSA CABEZAS: I'm a first generation college student, I'm also a first generation high school graduate.

And when I stepped into swimming, everybody was like, so financially literate girls was talking about how like other parents had trust funds set up for them.

And that's how they pay for school.

And I'm like, I was working for Senate 25 with a team.

So being in the environment, that's what really exposed me to wanting to know more about financial literacy.

CAPRICIA SAMPSON: The challenges of being able to grow wealth as a black person in America is really the disproportion of wealth.

As you know, for every dollar a black person makes, it's not in comparison to what white people make in this country.

ALYSSA CABEZAS: One of the things that we need to work on in our community is like, just being more intentional and methodical about how you use your money.

But in order for that to happen, we also have to be in a position where we aren't just trying to survive.

And like just make it day to day.

CHARLES WINFREY: What do we see growing up on TV, we see black athletes, and the -- in our pop culture was cool, we see black rappers.

We don't see black entrepreneurs.

That's the psychological shift that has to happen.

ALYSSA CABEZAS: Once you like, help our generation understand financial literacy, then they'll be able to do it for that generation.

And it'll really like revolutionize the trajectory of what it means to be like a black person with money.

CAPRICIA SAMPSON: What I'm seeing now is that we're in this financial revolution, where people actually are being excited and taking ownership of understanding how to maximize their income and also what it looks like to grow and to have ownership, which are things that weren't necessarily our story in history.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Joining me now to talk about the importance of financial literacy is Robert Smith, philanthropist and CEO of the private equity firm, VISTA Equity Partners.

ROBERT SMITH, CEO, Vista Equity Partners: Thank you.

It's my pleasure.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: What do you make of the current state of financial literacy in the black community?

ROBERT SMITH: There are a number of challenges, some of them are systemic, and some of them are personal.

The systemic ones are access to capital access to enablement.

And then on the personal side is financial literacy and understanding how, you know, utilization of the capital constructs here in the U.S. can enable an improvement of their condition in their lives.

And we've just found that those two areas are areas that require some focus and, frankly, some resources and capability to enable the community to actually continue to excel.

And to accelerate further to make up the gap in this in this this wealth gap that we've seen for decades.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Why is there such a low level of financial literacy in the black community?

And what are the factors contributing to it?

ROBERT SMITH: You know, it's knowledge and information, you know, for so long, you know, there was just lack of access to information.

You know, I am the first generation to go to the segregated schools and where you are now enabled to participate in here information about everything from, you know, educational systems to investing to, you know, how to actually improve your condition by buying houses, borrowing money, all those sorts of things.

You know, my parent's generation was really the first generation that had access to pension plans in the African American community.

And, you know, understanding the importance of being able to work and retire.

And in some cases, use that ability to enable your children should not go to school, to borrow money against the house so that they can get educated and move the next generation poor.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Student loan debt, as you know, is a significant barrier to financial success for many Americans in 2019, you paid off student loans for an entire graduating class at Morehouse College, the historically black university, why did you decide to do that?

ROBERT SMITH: You know, they had already bet on themselves, which is very important.

You know, from my perspective, you know, they're at the point of graduation, it taken out the student loans.

And I really started to evaluate, you know, if I were going to do something to help these students, what's the best answer, you can write a scholarship to the school, but I want to actually reward people who had already done the work had already bet on themselves.

And so that's why I did it in that fashion.

But 60 percent of the wealth generated an African American communities goes towards servicing student loan debt, and I just thought that was just unconscionable in many respects.

Look, it's important that these children get educated, it's important that we give them the opportunities to improve their condition in life.

But I think it's also important, they have an ability to create their own personal wealth and wealth for their families.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: There are other initiatives supported by corporations that address these kinds of financial inequities.

And you've asked a number of them, how can corporate America help in closing the racial wealth gap?

And does it actually want to?

ROBERT SMITH: One of the things that I did coming out of the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd was formed the Southern Communities Initiative, which was a consortium of companies to address some of these, you know, these issues, specifically for communities of color in the south, where almost 50 percent of black Americans live.

And we've identified in essence, six communities with Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, Houston, Memphis and New Orleans.

And what we're looking at to do and are offering corporate and philanthropic organizations are measured and vetted, shovel ready ways for them to help fulfill, and not only their pledges, but some of the racial wealth gaps and opportunity gaps that exist.

Many of them are looking for ways to do it and looking for ways that are reliable, we built out what we'll call the infrastructure so that you can now drive if you want to drive capital to improve the condition in the banking infrastructure, or the healthcare infrastructure or the things for, you know, food disparity issues.

So that's been one of the most important parts of this is actually betting and pulling together the systems and the infrastructure and the partnerships so that people have reliable places to put their capital.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: If you had two pieces of advice for people to get on the road to financial literacy, what would it be?

ROBERT SMITH: First, get up to speed and understand what is financial literacy for your family.

In some cases, it might be gaining some independence, through some investments for your, you know, for your retirement.

In this case, it might be you know, buying a house, investing in stocks, investing in bonds, and really understanding how to do that.

And the second, which enables you to do the first rank is you know, I think about to go call on your Congress, people to get them to ensure that your community and your businesses all have access to broadband, and the internet.

I mean, that is now the purveyor of information and insights.

And we've just found too many communities of color, actually don't have access to that level of service that enables you to you know, teach, educate and train.

And so those are the two things that I would point to as important for depending upon how far away you are from getting on the road to financial literacy to really embark upon.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Philanthropist and entrepreneur, Robert Smith.

Thank you for your time.

ROBERT SMITH: Thank you, Laura.