High Schools need to teach financial literacy

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#1
thett3
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I've seen too many of my peers make absolutely ruinous financial decisions. Mostly in regard to student loans, but also credit card debt, buying cars far to expensive for their incomes, paying as much for rent as they are allowed to, etc.

There are always going to be people who make poor choices, but the financial illiteracy of the average student coming out of High School (or really just Americans in general) is appalling. They don't understand compound interest, just how destructive credit card debt is or how powerful even small investments can become given enough time. They don't understand how to invest, how to save for retirement,  how to budget. Most importantly, many kids coming out of High School have absolutely no idea what things cost, or what reasonable income and saving expectations are. "Sure I'll be $80,000 in debt but the starting salary in my major is $50,000. I can pay it off in a few years, tops." Uhh...no. That is a decade, if you're lucky. I know people in this EXACT situation, who very foolishly made decisions to go to college out of state for exorbitant tuition when they never would have made that choice if they understood anything about personal finance.

I am convinced that a great many of the people I know would be substantially better off if they had even a rudimentary education on finance. It's absolutely criminal that our society allows 18 year olds with no assets or income sign up for non dischargeable debt that can reach to the six figures without providing them in their TWELVE years of education the information necessary to understand that decision. These kids are the future, if you cripple them at the beginning of their adult lives, the next generation isn't going to materialize at all.
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Some student debt makes sense, too. A college degree is an incredible asset and going like 30 grand into debt for it is 100% worth it so long as you graduate and pick a major where you can secure a job. But there are decisions ignorant and unprepared kids can make that frankly, I am not convinced should even be allowed. The financial difference between the people I know who made the right choices and those who made the wrong ones is frankly unbelievable, I know people in their mid-20s with net worths of well over a hundred thousand dollars, and other people with $80,000 in debt making $17/hr. The inequality within the millennial generation is absolutely breathtaking and I do believe some sympathy for those who made bad choices on subjects they were never provided any guidance on is in order
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Also what’s really interesting to me is that I know a few people who grew up upper middle class but had the type of parents who think “you’re 18, you’re on your own!” who also made really poor college and career decisions. So these people are going to have grown up upper middle class, spend much of their adult life working class, only to suddenly become upper middle class again when their parents die and they inherit their money. It’ll be really interesting to see what happens with this group in particular because I think that’s a pretty uncommon life path historically 
#4
dfss9788
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Probably. I had zero guidance on that from parents/school and it took me about 5 or 6 years to figure it all out for myself. It was only then that I started to do well financially.
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thett3
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@dfss9788
I actually had pretty good financial guidance from my parents who forced me to save a portion of any money I got from a young age and who were so allergic to debt that I grew up thinking we were way poorer than we actually were. But neither of them went to college so they had zero guidance on picking schools/majors, it was pretty much only luck that I ended up picking something that gave me good career prospects. At least where I went to school they spent twelve years saying college college college without providing any guidance on what to do when you got there
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@thett3
Absolutely true. Good post
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@thett3
They don't really teach people much about relationships in school, either. They do biological sex education but not much beyond that. Strange that so much of life is a competition for wealth and mates yet so little is done to prepare students for that competition. Ever been to a graduation? Listen to the speeches: "Go save the world! You don't matter! We didn't give you an education because we wanted you to have a good life. We gave you one because we wanted you to give a good life to somebody else."
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@thett3
I am 51 years old and I have never owned a credit card. ever. Now I am retired.
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I agree entirely with the title of this thread, the contents tends to have the same wishy-washiness that I see regarding this topic on 'inspirational YT vids' though.

It's very easy for someone who made all the right decisions to turn around and say 'sheesh, if you just knew what I know you'd have done the same but the poor literally have less to begin with and furthermore even if they make the right decisions with saving and how to go about their life tend to at best end up a cog in a machine that benefits someone else much more. It's not ignorance alone that's the problem but at least the ignorance should be stopped, I agree.
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@RatMan.

I don't agree entirely with the title of this thread....Perhaps competency would have been preferable to "literacy"......College Students that don't already know how to read and write, perhaps shouldn't be College Students.
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@thett3
I took algebra two with finance in high school
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Athias
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@thett3
I am convinced that a great many of the people I know would be substantially better off if they had even a rudimentary education on finance. It's absolutely criminal that our society allows 18 year olds with no assets or income sign up for non dischargeable debt that can reach to the six figures without providing them in their TWELVE years of education the information necessary to understand that decision. These kids are the future, if you cripple them at the beginning of their adult lives, the next generation isn't going to materialize at all.
This is the intention after all--the creation of debt slaves.
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@Athias
I am convinced that a great many of the people I know would be substantially better off if they had even a rudimentary education on finance. It's absolutely criminal that our society allows 18 year olds with no assets or income sign up for non dischargeable debt that can reach to the six figures without providing them in their TWELVE years of education the information necessary to understand that decision. These kids are the future, if you cripple them at the beginning of their adult lives, the next generation isn't going to materialize at all.
This is the intention after all--the creation of debt slaves.
I think we need to lower the age of consent to 14 for student loan debt. I think 14 year olds possess the requisite mental capacity to understand the consequences of their actions, and who is in a better position than the minor herself to judge whether or not she should enter in to such an arrangement?
#14
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Money goes in, money goes out. You can't explain that.
#15
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I think we need to lower the age of consent to 14 for student loan debt. I think 14 year olds possess the requisite mental capacity to understand the consequences of their actions, and who is in a better position than the minor herself to judge whether or not she should enter in to such an arrangement?
Hahahahaha.

Even 14 years old is an infringement on the personal choice of those younger.

There should be no age of consent for student loan debt. 3 year olds should be allowed to take out student loans for their future education. The state should not interfere with people's right to personal freedom. Hell, even 12 week old infants should be allowed to take out student loans, vote, pay taxes, pay a mortgage, sign up for the military etc. -- there is no one in a better position than the infant to judge whether or not he/she should enter such an arrangement.

Stop allowing the fascist state to infringe upon our personal freedoms.