Why Isn't Personal Finance Taught in the Public School System?

American Thinker ^ | 06/22/2018 | Larry Alton

[SeekAndFind]

The average American has an abysmally low personal finance IQ, yet the public school system continues to ignore the importance of educating students in this key area of life. Why is this? And when will things change?

The State of Personal Finance in America

When you look at salary and income statistics, Americans are killing it. When you look at just about any other statistical category as it relates to personal finance, the average American is miserably failing. How bad are things? Take a look:

• Just 41 percent of Americans use a budget. In other words, 59 percent of Americans don’t have an accurate understanding of how much they earn or spend on a monthly basis. This tends to lead to overspending, poor saving, and a lack of investing.

• The average college graduate leaves school with $37,172 in student loan debt, which follows them around for more than a decade.

• Only 48 percent of Americans have enough cash in the bank to cover three months of expenses if they were to lose their job. A separate study suggests that two-thirds of people would have trouble scrounging up $1,000 in an emergency.

• When it comes to retirement, only 35 percent of the workforce has more than $100,000 tucked away. An even larger segment -- 38 percent to be exact -- has less than $10,000 saved.

• 35 percent of Americans with a credit file have debt in collections reported on their credit files. The average amount owed by these borrowers is $5,178.

• A study from the National Endowment for Financial Education shows that just 24 percent of millennials demonstrate “basic financial literacy.”

[DIRTYSECRET]

I grew up in a house that was illiterate in that department. I used it as motivation, especially when the drill sgt. got in my face(basic training). I vowed never to be in a position to take that kind of crap again. Took 40 years but I’m very happy. Know any stray women out there?

[Bonemaker]

“Taxes being an enemy of savings isn’t mentioned either.

How I despise tax thieves. Paying for legitimate needs is one thing. Being gouged because of gov-co greed and stupidity is something else.”

No kidding! I couldn’t care less if governments starve to death except for the bare essentials....roads, law enforcement, fire fighting, emergency services, etc. As it is, governments do a lousy job on everything.

[oblomov]

Is the government in a position to teach financial responsibility?

[madison10]

My niece had such a class in high school 2016, she had to do a budget.

Such ideas/programming disappeared when they took out home economics and basic accounting classes.

[Bishop_Malachi]

At my school (in Georgia), economics is the required senior level social studies. Personal Finance is an elective. Even though the economics course has about 20% of the curriculum devoted to personal finance, this is not enough. I’ve suggested (to the county office) that they switch the classes, making personal finance mandatory with economics being a social studies elective for college. So far, no takers.

[KarlInOhio]

The government teaching children about personal financial reponsibility is like the blind, deaf, dumb, paralyzed and bankrupt leading the blind. $20+ trillion in debt and almost no assets to show for the "investment".

Maybe it can serve as a bad example like a driver's ed film.

[kanawa]

Too busy teaching that Heather can have two Mommies.

[onedoug]

End public education!

[napscoordinator]

They don’t in catholic school either. Although that calculus I took really comes in handy. Not really.

[KC_for_Freedom]

The classes I taught had guidelines and specific topics that had to be covered.

In the relatively advanced Algebra II material, interest and interest compounding were required to be taught, so I added some personal finance at that point.

Had to be careful, because all classes were supposed to be kept in sync in the event that students were transferred from one class to another. But a little teacher influence is almost always tolerated if sync is maintained. So I got away with it. Until my contract ran out of special funding and I was released because no one on the staff retired that year. (Obama grant rule.)

[bethelgrad]

The solution is proactive parenting. All of my homeschooled kids took a semester long course in personal finance by Dave Ramsey.

[SeekAndFind]

[huckfillary]

The government wants our kids to be clueless. I’m a former broker. My son has just entered the work force. I told him he has to open an IRA and put at least 10% of his gross income into a balanced/growth package of mutual funds. It took an hour for me to explain this to him.

[Parmy]

Furthermore, it is so much easier to teach a child how to put a prophylactic on a banana. It is hands-on and not just a pencil and paper exercise requiring a modicum of thought.

[minnesota_bound]

Gov’t also needs to stop taking more then half our money!

[huckfillary]

It’s my understanding that they don’t even teach kids their multiplication tables. How can one go through through life without knowing your multiplication tables? Consciously or not, it’s something we use everyday.

This is nothing less than child abuse.

[editor-surveyor]

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Viva Common Whore!
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[minnesota_bound]

#21 Know any stray women out there?
Just walk into a beauty parlor and say:
“I’m rich and single and looking for a wife”

[matthew fuller]

"Or worse, the parents contradict or push back on the lessons of what’s taught by the schools."

I think that any pushback from parents against public school indoctrination is a good thing. Even better, put the little urchins in private or religious school.