The Importance Of Financial Literacy Campaign

In this society, some of the most important things in your life have to deal with money. In Chad Foster’s book, Financial Literacy for Teens, he taught his readers how to save, spend, invest and give away your money. Reading this book has taught me to start saving when I’m young, know the differences of what I need to buy rather than what I want, to make money while I sleep and giving away some of your money will not only help yourself, but help many others as well.

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.

They must understand budgeting, taxes and banking while avoiding traps like payday loans that prey on the poor and uninformed. Despite this, only five states require students to take a stand-alone semester financial literacy course, so school districts simply don’t offer one. Campaigning for FBLA national office, I was surprised how few students, all enrolled in high school business courses, had access to a financial literacy instruction. I experienced the results of this shortcoming firsthand after my parent’s divorce. Lacking a personal finance education, my mother initially struggled with basic budgeting and understanding mortgages and taxes. By expanding financial literacy education in high schools, we can lay the foundation to challenge wealth

The idea of adding a financial literacy course into schools curriculums and requiring students to take it before graduating is a current decision being considered by numerous school districts. Supporters of this idea say that it would have a positive effect while the people who oppose this idea state that financial courses don’t work.

Teens and some young adults are known for blowing their money on unimportant things. Some student think ahead and start saving up for college, which is when managing money comes into place. Gas, auto insurance, and car payments are often sometimes paid by the students, when their parents actually own the car. For example, I pay for my own gas and insurance every month. I make minimum wage working between twenty and thirty hours a week. I was not expected to pay for all of those expenses, but I did not expect my parents to pay for all of these expenses anyway. I offered to pay for all of my insurance, which takes up a little over half of my paycheck. When I manage my money right and do not spend all of one paycheck on unimportant and unneeded things, I can start saving up the extra money accumulated, which results in me having extra money when I get my next paycheck. My parents did not want me to work, but I wanted to work and prove to everyone around me and myself that I was ready to take a step in being more independent with my own money and that I did not need them paying for everything I wanted/needed. Managing money is not hard, it just takes making the right decision of whether or not what is wanted is worth the money. As students learn to manage their time and money, they become more self-dependent and mature.

The summation made by Scheresberg, Lusardi, and Yakoboski (2014) of Generation Y is that “many college-educated Millennials have low financial literacy levels; many are not aware of their low financial literacy; many have not received any formal financial

Being able to manage your money is an important skill to have as an adult, but the current education system does not make financial management a required class to take. While some people think that parents are the ones responsible, this should not be

Even with these changes some may still doubt why these classes are important, but here are a few statistics about the financial literacy of today’s adults. According to Caitlin Blake of Concordia University, “Only 39% of adults make budgets and track their spending.” and “32% of adults do not save a portion of their annual income.” (Blake) These statistics show that a growing number of adults either don’t use, or haven’t acquired the skills needed to be financially wise. Even with these numbers still being a minority at the moment, a possible outcome in the future could be a majority of adults struggling to manage personal finances. Though many schools still do offer courses to teach these types of skills, many do not require them past middle school. With these classes still being electives, they are still highly susceptible to being eliminated from schools course offerings and, students opting not to take them. Now off the topic of financial literally or; therefore, the lack of, we now move on the topic of

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

Lyons et al. (2006) determined that the majority of college students (76.7%) indicated that they had gone to their parents for financial information. A study completed in 2010 by Bryce Jorgensen and Jyoti Slava tested the perceived parental influence on the education of the financial literacy of college students. This study found that parental income had a significant influence on the perceived parental influence of financial knowledge on students (Jorgensen and Savla, 2010). Parents earning higher incomes had their children perceive a greater amount of influence that they had on their financial literacy, and the more positive that their children's financial attitudes and behaviors tended to be (Jorgensen and Savla, 2010).The study also indicated that students who reported learning about finance explicitly from their parents had better financial attitudes and behaviors, yet lower financial knowledge than students who reported learning only implicitly about finances from their parents (Jorgensen and Savla, 2010). These findings were attributed to the fact that parents with higher incomes have a greater number of opportunities to interact with their children in a diverse financial transactions than parents with lower incomes, such as buying a car or renting a college apartment. (Jorgensen and Savla, 2010). A separate study showed that high school and college students who observed their parents in financial experiences, such as observing the saving habits of their parents, had a greater amount of financial investment knowledge and savings (Peng et al.

How to properly manage money is something that should be taught to young people because it is a very important asset in everyday life. “Total consumer debt in the United States stands at nearly $2.6 trillion dollars. That works out to be nearly $8,500 in debt for every man” (Anderson). Many times teenagers are known for “throwing away” their money by spending it on unnecessary things. This is something that could easily be avoided if students were taught the proper techniques on saving and spending money. There are many different skills that students could learn if personal finance was taught in the school system. Managing money is one of those very important skills and would help to lessen the number of young people spending irresponsibly instead of

What I learned about being a teacher assistant for financial fitness is that there is always more to learn about money and your financial issues, strengths, and weaknesses. after taking financial fitness last semester I learn different methods of saving and learning about interests and APR. I think a different experience to put yourself in a teacher position and think what do I want my fellow peers to learn what I didn’t learn from the semester. What are way I can enhance their learning about money and as well help my professor understand what college students might need to hear about financial problems or situations before encountering them. What I also learning from a teacher assistant was I been to start applying the methods from the financial

Who is responsible for teaching kids about their own money? It should really be the kid’s parent or relative. Though a lot of adults don’t know much about it so they don’t know how to teach it. This is why we have so much credit card debt in the United States, because adults don’t know how to balance their own checkbook. A lot of people say that it should be the schools responsibility to teach kids about money and finances. Adding this new subject would require more teachers to be hired, and a lot of schools can’t afford to hire more teachers, which would make the credit requirement higher for

Working through school is tough and all my high school teachers, orientation leaders and SAT study guides failed to mention that. I honestly have got all my financial skills from my mom and Dave Ramsey, my mom she is great, but all her fingers have turned to rust from pinching pennies. I think holding on to them so tight is her version of a stress ball. Ever since, I was about ten my mom made my sister and I begin to save money, and now her teachings have paid off. I am 19 have a retirement fund—its quite sad but better than nothing—and an emergency fund. I am not saying this to brag but to say how her teachings have helped.

As a continuation, I have a real passion for personal finance and find it deeply disturbing that financial literacy is all but ignored at most levels of education, so I want this class to be a valuable addition to your curriculum. Some personal finance axioms have been repeated so often that they almost can't be considered advice anymore. Some people amazingly enough have made a career out of saying "you need to save money, put money into an individual retirement account, take advantage of your 401(k) through your employer, cut up your credit cards, pay your bills on time, don't spend more money than you make." DUH