With ubiquitous credit targeted at younger and younger buyers, it is easier now than ever to get into financial trouble, said Preston Cochrane, chairman of the coalition and executive director of AAA Fair Credit Foundation.

"The ability to pay for things with plastic, and being able to do that anywhere, has really created a different set of standards for people," Cochrane said. "They don't carry cash like they used to. They carry credit and debit cards.

"For people, especially high school students and people entering college who are introduced to so many different financial products and so many different credit cards, what does it all mean? Being able to understand what interest does, how it can work for or against you, and being able to manage your money and make sound decisions about how to use credit — that's the key."

Cochrane said it isn't uncommon at AAA Fair Credit for a client to express confusion at having to pay down credit card debt.

"We see people that just get as many credit cards as they can with no understanding that they have to pay that back, that it's not just free money," he said. "Or they'll charge up their credit cards, thinking that they can afford the minimum payment but not realizing that they owe $10,000. They don't understand that if they continue making that minimum payment, it will take them until they retire, or longer, to pay back the debt that is owed.

"What we're trying to do at Jump$tart is teach kids to be money-smart, so that when they have to make those life decisions, they're much more educated."

And with identity theft on the rise and the scourge of predatory lending, Rowe said it's more important than ever to start teaching financial literacy early.

"Research shows that children make up their mind how they're going to handle their money by the time they finish the fifth grade," Rowe said. "That means we should be, in this state, doing the stop-gap instruction for juniors and seniors; but hopefully there will be other materials prepared and even mandated for junior high and eventually the elementary grades.

"If the bankruptcy rate were not No. 1 in Utah, we'd expect parents to know more, but obviously they do not. To teach kids to be savers and sharers, and to spend smartly, from mid-elementary school up. That's what we want to do"

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