Andrew Miner can’t seem to stay out of the spotlight this year. The East Greenwich High School senior – quarterback of the football team, lead in the school play, all-state saxophone player, and high school Heisman award winner – earned top state honors for his essay in the InvestWrite competition about real-world financial decision making and placed second nationally. Out of 20,000 participants.

Miner’s essay detailed how he planned to pay off his anticipated college debt of $35,000 within 10 years, including where he would be living post college (New York City), how much he would be making ($40,000/year) and what he would be able to invest annually ($5,333).

Sec. of State Ralph Mollis, who attended the event, was so impressed he challenged Miner to help him figure out how he could retire in 13 years (see the video attached here).

For Miner, getting his contemporaries to learn about finances has become something of a calling.

“This time last year I knew absolutely nothing about finance, to the extent that I didn’t know what I didn’t know,” said Miner after last week’s surprise award ceremony at EGHS. “I learned so much from Mrs. Page’s course, Personal Finance.”

He was referring to Patricia Page – who has also had a good year, being named Rhode Island Teacher of the Year in the fall.

Miner’s become so interested in helping young people become financially literate, he and two classmates – Patrick Norton and Kyle Matus – formed a group during the recent Choose2Matter event at EGHS to push for financial literacy requirements on the high school level in Rhode Island.

A week ago, he even got to talk to Gov. Lincoln Chafee and Gen. Treasurer Gina Raimondo about it. His next target: Education Commissioner Deborah Gist.

“The students who take Personal Finance, those students are well equipped to handle their finances,” Miner said. “But everyone should be taking that course. That’s how strongly we feel about it.”

Andrew F. Miner is among 20,000 students nationwide who take the InvestWrite challenge each year, developing the personal financial savvy needed to make real-world financial decisions.