Programs span grades K-12, with age-appropriate curricula designed to teach elementary students about their roles as individuals, workers, and consumers and to prepare middle grade and high school students for key economic and workforce issues they will face.

Over the past ten years, numerous evaluation studies, conducted by professional external evaluators, have confirmed that JA programs are successful in raising student aspirations, teaching entrepreneurial skills, providing a positive business role model and teaching students to recognize and create opportunities to achieve their goals. These studies provide credible evidence for the positive impact of JA programs.

JA is passionate people inspiring kids to learn the economics of life. These passionate caring people include teachers, investors, and volunteer role models, who are helping to provide a clearer vision for the next generation about their role and opportunities in the workplace.

Our purpose is to educate and inspire young people to value free enterprise, business, and economics to improve the quality of their lives. Each Junior Achievement program offers award winning materials and trained volunteers from the local business community who provide real-life experiences and inspiration.

The JA experience emphasizes:

• Exposure to positive corporate and community role models
• Workforce readiness
• Life skills of self-reliance, confidence, and sense of accountability
• Character modeling emphasizing respect, responsibility and integrity

Young people are leaving school unprepared to join the workforce. Many schools have a difficult time  addressing the issue of workforce preparedness. The gravity of this problem is well documented by the Gallup Organization and others – and the implications for the U.S. economy in the 21st century are profound.

Junior Achievement uses early intervention to begin building a foundation for self-respect, the most important element for success. Toward these goals, we have developed a sequential learning curriculum carefully tailored to students’ abilities and needs at every grade level. At a cost of $20 per student, our program is extremely cost effective. The curriculum motivates students, which, in turn, enhances their ability to learn and broadens their expectations for the future.

While our curriculum is formal and written, our volunteer mentors do not "lecture" in the classroom. Rather, we encourage them to share their life experiences with the youngsters. We know that the fun part of learning is to take a principle – an idea- and to live it, to basically go from being in school to being in real life. When our volunteer consultants put the fun back into learning, it makes a student thirst for education. We, as an organization, are able to put that fun back into the learning process.

Junior Achievement Worldwide is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The JA Headquarters  provides strategic direction, leadership and support to approximately 1,350 employees in nearly 150 local operations in all 50 states. Local volunteer boards of directors comprised of business, education, and civic leaders set policy and direction for each local office. JA of NJ is governed by a state board, which includes statewide executives as well as representatives from three regional district boards, north, central and south Jersey.