Financial literacy education in the United States is currently facing a significant achievement gap across socio-economic boundaries. Variation across these boundaries for high school students appear in both international (PISA) and national (Jump$tart) results. Current research investigates the disparity but does not suggest specific pedagogical methods for ameliorating the gap.

This study explores how senior-year highschool students, who are now of age, assume the responsibility of loans. A prototype learning environment, using open-source applications, where groups of three to four students can collaborate to complete assigned tasks has been created for student exploration. Six senior-highschool students from Rutgers Future Scholars are the subjects. The results show an increase in knowledge growth across the six incremental tasks as the participants manipulated and addressed the variables that contribute to stages and outcomes of borrowing money from a financial institution. The participants shared their individual experiences after applying the application to solve the tasks presented and offered suggestions for future research.