High School Financial Requirement

"Seventeen states already require a personal finance class in their common core standards", Ghahremam states in the article. By requiring a personal finance class into the curriculum Antonia Farzan writes, "High school seniors who had taken a personal finance class were more likely to save money (93%, compared to 84% of students who hadn't taken a class), have a budget (60%, compared to 46%), and invest (32%, compared to 17%)." By requiring a personal finance class into the curriculum, it would teach students how to manage their income, while helping students decrease the amount of debt in adulthood. Students who enter the work force would also benefit from financial education because they would make wise decisions, and would purchase needed goods like a house and a car that would help them accumulate a good credit over their lifetime. However, requiring a personal finance class into the high school curriculum can be difficult. Standardized tests like the ACT or SAT do not test personal finance concepts. To raise the financial IQ of a high school student, teachers need to be qualified to teach personal finance, but only one in five teachers feel comfortable teaching personal finance (Kadlec). However, teaching students one semester of personal finance in high school might not be as beneficial as teaching it every year, but it's a start to helping kids with a brighter

So often we hear about teaching the whole child. Today, more than ever, personal finance knowledge and awareness are a critical part of what it means to teach the whole child.

Although knowing how to manage money, budget, and finance does not guarantee life will be a piece of cake, failing to understand can come with consequences. Many students are going into college and starting careers without knowing how to properly manage their finances, save money, or invest. In her article, Yes: Ignorance Carries a High Price, Annamaria Lusardi uses driving as an example. Lusardi mentions how there are many precautions taken in

The first reason why college students should be required to take a Personal Finance class is to help them learn how to balance a checkbook. Balancing a checkbook is a very crucial thing when trying to manage the expenses that come up in everyday; such as paying bills, buying food, filling up the car with gasoline. Knowing how much money that is in the student's banking account at all times can be very beneficial to the student, especially if an emergency arises unexpectedly. A balanced checkbook is important for many other reasons such as being able to catch fraud; Thieves today do not need to physically

The financial crisis emerged because of an excessive deregulation of business operation of financial institutions and of abusing the securitization mechanism in the absence of clearly defined rules to regulate this area in the American mortgage market (Krstić, Jemović, & Radojičić, 2013). Deregulation gives larger banks the opportunity to loosen underwriting lender guidelines and generate increase opportunity for homeownership (Kroszner & Strahan, 2013). After deregulation, banks utilized many versions of mortgage loans. Mortgage loans such as subprime and Alternative-A paper loans became available for borrowers challenged to find mortgage lenders before deregulation (Elbarouki, 2016; Palmer, 2015). The housing market has been severely affected by fluctuating interest rates and the requirement of large down payment (Follain, & Giertz, 2013). The subprime lending crisis has taken a toll on the nation’s economy since 2007. Individuals who lacked sufficient credit ratings or down payments resorted to subprime mortgages to finance their homes Defaults on subprime and other mortgages precipitated the foreclosure crisis, which contributed to the recent recession and national financial crisis (Odetunde, 2015). Subprime mortgages were appropriate for borrowers with substandard credit and Alternate-A paper loans were

My own financial health resonates well with the above quote from Daly and Farley, not because I’ve thought about money, but because I know nothing about it. As a young student still breaking ties from home, I have to navigate the intricate world credit, lease contracts, financial aid, and investments seemingly to no avail. In his chapter titled “Enough Debt,” Dietz alludes to this complex world that is the American financial system that I and every other American are currently dealing with. With any complex system, there are misconceptions tied to it that can provide a simpler understanding to those analyzing it. Dietz provides three of the most prevalent misconceptions, how their true function actually debunks them, and then systemic changes

To most people, it is the only way to becoming successful in life. To others, it is the only way to expand on their success. If college has become a necessity, then why is it that for nearly a half a century college has become more and more out of reach? The main problem that causes financial fear is being poorly informed about financial aid. Being poorly informed leads to students and families holding back from choosing schools, being too afraid of the debt to come. “Students in part make college-related decisions based on their perceptions of financial aid availability students in part make” (“Challenges”). Not knowing can greatly discourage a student and alter their mindset of choosing colleges in a negative way. Ultimately not knowing can cause the student to completely exclude college out of the picture. . Even when the student is aware of financial aid, they’ll have no knowledge of accessing or applying for any of it. Even if they did, it is still possible that they may not qualify. Due to the fact that they not be good enough or they didn’t have the right resources. Not everyone gets the same

these courses are being used to educated students about financial literacy to better prepare them for the future. As stated in the article “Financial Education Leaving Americans Behind” by Greg Burns, “Utah, Missouri and Tennessee require students to take a semester-long personal-finance class before graduating from high school…” While many people find these courses to be helpful others are against this idea. In the article it states “ Trouble is, growing evidence suggests that financial-literacy courses don’t work. Worse, they may actually hurt, in part by making their graduates overconfident about limited skills”. On the other hand supporters point to the fact that people who were not required to take a financial course are not aware of how to take care of their finances. Which is concerning and is a great example as to why schools districts should input these economic courses into their

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

Why do students never have money? It is a privilege being a student in the United States because the amount of money necessary to pay all the expenses inside and outside of school is insanely high. According to the presentation made by Greg Gottesman of school loans in TEDx, it costs around three-million-dollars of student loans per year. Most students are not in a position to pay that amount of money; and as a consequence, they drown in debt for the rest of their lives. However, student expenses and its solutions can be classified in three different fields: necessities, auto expenses, and class expenses.

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

The moral of the story: don’t count on your kids learning about money at any level of the education system.

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.

The article “Subprime Mortgage Crisis” was written on November 22, 2013. Since the event being discussed in the topic are fairly recent, a source written during or immediately after the mortgage crisis might not provide an evaluated explanation of the incident in its entirety, and instead it could explain was the crisis like for the people that lived it. The article was written three years after the occurrence and nearly four years before today. The amount of time that elapsed between the event, the writing, and current day is sufficient to make this source have both a complete scope of the topic and the quality of being current.

When we graduate we should know how to pay bills, go to interviews, take care of ourselves. With the classes we have to take we do not learn any of those things. We have a good education it's just not what we need. I feel like it should be mandatory for us to have to take a class that deals with