Experimental Design: Financial Literacy and Social Change

Whew, where to start? The personal finance class through Dame Ramsey’s Foundations in Personal Finance textbook and video series really had a lot of useful information, and it is hard to pick out the most impactful chapters and topics. However, I think the most important stuff for me was his five foundations for financial success, which were reinforced throughout the course. I am not downplaying the other important stuff in the course, including learning about the history of credit, budgeting, consumer awareness, investing, insurance, and taxes, but I think that mastering the fundamentals is important, which is why I am choosing to highlight them in this paper.

The goal of this course is to get you thinking about personal finance issues at a point in your life when you still have time to benefit from the power of time in generating wealth to accomplish your other life goals. The financial decisions you make early in life with determine in great extent the quality of life you will enjoy later, especially given the turbulent and uncertain economic conditions. Money isn’t everything, but a lack of it will impact almost every aspect of your life and those who surround you.

Advocating for simpler money management: Alliteration of Economic Trends that Everyone has Been Told and Many have Forgot

Financial decisions are something everyone faces like buying a car to figuring out how to pay for students loans or debts. We are not taught about these types of financial decisions and how to go about them from a young age. In the news article Working Financial Literacy in With the Three R’s by Tara Siegel Bernard, she talks about how more states are beginning to require a personal finance instructions class. In the article Finance Course Prompts Debate by Gina Davis, she suggests incorporating financial elements into already required classes.

Future initiatives with financial education can change the landscape of an individual’s life and the economy in which we live. If there is limited focus on learning about personal finances we continue to set our economy up for constant failure. There is a substantial amounts of education provided to school age children that does not directly impact their financial education for their future. In high school individuals learn

Throughout my essay I will explain how I experienced the banking-concept and the problem-posing education system. In one hand, I definitely agree with Freire about his thoughts of banking concept but in the other hand I do not. Let me tell you my experiences from Hungary and the United States, so that might give you a better understanding.

The first few chapters of the book provides the readers an assessment on how financially responsible they are, and the common obstacles that might hinder them in achieving

The Federal Reserve statistics indicate that the average U.S. household has a credit card balance of $7,283 while the average indebted household has an outstanding balance of $15,611 (Bricker, et al., 2014). Only home mortgages and student loans exceed credit card balances. If consumers hope to create an appropriate level of wealth to support themselves in the latter years of life and avoid counting on government programs as their primary source of income, consumers will need to save more of their income. Servicing credit card debt required approximately 13.9% of consumer’s disposable income in the fourth quarter of 2008 (Wilcox, Block, & Eisenstein, 2011). If these dollars were available as contributions into a retirement account on behalf of the consumer, countless people would be confident about their ability to save for an appropriate lifestyle in retirement. The abuse of credit card usage may be caused by a lack of spending discipline, lack of information or a lack of financial literacy, or a combination of the three. These shortfalls are examined to determine if policy makers can intervene to motivate consumers to generate improved decisions regarding the use of credit cards. The first step in this process is having a basic understanding or knowledge of financial matters. The need for improving financial literacy in America continues to grow as financial products and services continue to become evolve in complexity. The Great Recession has recently proved that financial literacy in this country has room for improvement at all economic levels. The CARD Act required The Secretary of Education and the Director of the Office of Financial Education of the Department of the Treasury to coordinate with the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy to develop a strategic plan to improve, expand and support financial

It is no secret that the financial system in The United States of America is incredibly complex and difficult to fully understand. As more and more people go into debt each year, it becomes clear that every American needs some help when it comes to financial literacy. However, the implementation of a financial literacy course is not a good solution. A course in financial literacy would end up being a waste of time and money because the class would cost the school board a large sum of money that it already does not have, and the students would not actually acquire much benefit from the class. Schools are getting less funding from the government every year and most school budget are pushed to their max.

Those born with a silver spoon in their mouth are destined to be wealthy. Not only because they come from old money, but because those who come from old money teach their kids about money. Although economics and finances have recently been added to the curriculum of American schools, there is only so much that can be learned from a book. This kind of knowledge is gained mainly through life-experiences and there are many people who believe it is the parent’s job to make sure their children are prepared to deal with finances in the future. Many people who are not of old money are financially illiterate; they have little to no education about finances. They may know how to make money, however, they probably have no idea how to keep their money. Therefore, they have no idea how to teach their children how to keep money. For this reason, a large portion of the population is focused on get-rich-quick schemes hoping to “make it big” or “strike it rich”.

First, with 13 states already having a mandatory financial literacy class, many studies have shown that those classes are not working but might give them false hope that they know what they are doing. Tara Siegel Bernard quoted Annamaria Lusardi in a New York Times article that schools need to start teaching the basics of economics so that the students can “‘make financial decisions” on their own. However, this is just giving the students false hope because in another article from the Chicago Tribune, by Greg Burns, he says that there is more and more evidence stating that the classes are not only not working but “worse, they may actually hurt,” the student. He continues

Many believe that financial literacy classes are helpful and a good tool for you in the future. Finance is a waste of time and the classes do not help you in any case. The material taught in these classes are not used in everyday life and the methods used in the class are not helpful in any way.

It’s no secret that a majority Americans struggle with all things finances. The jargon alone is enough to leave many confused, and with the complexities of modern economy becoming an ever increasing tangled mess, Americans are looking to do something about it. One popular suggestion is financial literacy classes for high school students. While the idea sounds promising, the reality of these classes is rather farfetched. People praise the thought of implementing financial literacy into our school system in order to help kids in their future. This praise is filled with good intentions, but the sad fact is that this is not in a student's best interest.

This statement is rather shocking but proves why high school students should be taught financial literacy. Financial literacy is the ability of learning how to manage money. Financial literacy should be taught because, more people have been going bankrupt at a younger age, they have more debt options, and lastly are unable to manage money because they have never been taught. This is not just a problem for an individual, but potentially a huge problem in this country’s future.

In the first large-scale international study of 15-year-old students’ financial literacy skills the U.S. ranked 12th out of the 18 participating countries