If you were to ask me right out of high school about the Pythagorean theorem I could tell you with confidence that it is used to find the sides of a right triangle: a²+b²=c². If you asked me how to take out a loan or balance a checkbook, I would have no idea.
Schools today are not teaching students important life skills that as adults we use daily, such as saving money for retirement, how to write a check or paying the bills. Personal finance classes should be a requirement for high school students to graduate so they are prepared for when they go to college and start in the work force.
A survey conducted by the Council for Economic Education found that the number of states that require high school students to take a course in personal finance is 17 out of 50. This has remained unchanged since 2014.
In another study from May 2016, 455 undergraduate and graduate students were asked 25 unique questions about personal finance and managing money. When asked to describe their current financial situation, 51 percent felt they were barely keeping up. Fifty-eight percent of participants reported that they are not saving money each month while 51 percent said they did not receive any personal finance education in high school.
Forty-three percent of students surveyed could not name the difference between a credit card and a debit card and 58 percent were not working on building good credit.
These numbers are alarming because students spend 12 years in school but they graduate without knowing anything about being a responsible, money-saving adult.
Data released in January of 2016 by Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Investor Education Foundation found that students who were required to take a personal finance class had better average credit scores and lower debt delinquency rates as young adults.
High schools should be held responsible for preparing their students to arrive in adulthood knowledgeable and prepared. There are countless other important life skills that are being overlooked such as sewing a button on a shirt, changing a car tire, home repair and cooking. Schools need to re-evaluate their curriculum and make time to teach youth how to be responsible and successful adults.
Personally, I don’t think schools should be held accountable. A lot of schools do have courses that teach students these things. Home Ec teaches you banking. Nutrition teaches you about healthy living. Shop teaches you how to change a tire and your car oil. A lot of students have the option to take these courses but chose other classes that better suit there interests. And if these classes weren’t available, I still don’t think it’s the schools fault. I always felt that my parents were responsible for teaching me those kinds of things. High school simply can’t fit EVERYTHING into the curricular and it shouldn’t have to.
I completely agree. My high school economics class didn’t even teach these things.