The Power of a Personal Story

How One Indiana Teacher’s Story Gives Students Hope for Their Financial Future

If high school students don’t believe their financial future can change, they won’t try to change it.

That’s what makes teaching personal finance so challenging. Students can learn how budgeting works or what it means to avoid debt and build wealth. But without hope, those lessons can feel irrelevant and out of reach. 

When money stress is all you’ve seen growing up, it’s hard to imagine your future looking any different. 

That’s where the power of a personal story comes in. 

Jacque Barricklow has been teaching personal finance classes at Franklin County High School in Indiana for the past three years.  

Before her students build a budget or calculate net worth, Jacque shares her own experience—what it looked like to take on student loans, how she paid them off, and how her family paid for college differently when her sons graduated high school.  

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It’s not the story of someone who’s managed their money perfectly and never made mistakes. That’s why it resonates so well with Jacque’s students. It’s real life. It’s honest. And students are looking for that authenticity from teachers.

Showing Instead of Telling 

Telling students what they should do is one thing. But showing them what it looked like for her and her family changed the entire classroom experience for Jacque. 

“I did take out some college loans,” she tells her students. “My parents didn’t save for college . . . so I had to pay for that.”  

Jacque’s transparent with her students about how difficult it was to pay off her loans. She emphasizes how paying off debt wasn’t easy. 

When her sons went to college, they could’ve chosen the same route. But Jacque and her husband saved some money to get them started and made sure they knew their options. Her sons worked hard during summers and applied for scholarships. They made intentional decisions about how to pay for school. 

“My sons didn’t have any debt,” she says. “They got scholarships, and they worked . . . we talked about all that.”  

For many students, that’s the part that’s hard to believe. 

“They think it’s unrealistic,” she says. “They think it’s impossible to not have student loans.” 

But that’s exactly why she tells her story. 

Students need to hear—clearly and firsthand—that there’s more than one way to pay for college. And students from all kinds of families and backgrounds can make a plan to pay for college and avoid graduating with a cloud of debt hanging over their heads.  

“It is feasible. It can happen.” 

When students hear that from someone who’s lived it—and helped her own kids do it—it starts to feel real. 

Leaving a Legacy 

Jacque plans to retire in May of 2026, but what she’s built in her classroom won’t leave with her. 

She helped students move from uncertainty to understanding. She’s given them the knowledge to manage money and the confidence to believe they can. 

Through sharing her own family’s story and walking alongside her students, she’s shown them that their starting point doesn’t have to determine their outcome.  

When it comes to being successful with money, Jacque knows her students need hope. They need to believe they can choose a better way by using the skills she teaches them to reach their goals.  

“You don’t think it can happen,” she tells them. “But it can!”