The Lack Of Financial Literacy Essay

Despite the importance of finance, accounting, and consumer intelligence, these topics are typically neglected in high schools. Unfortunately, personal finance is often learned by trial and error. The problem with this method of learning is that it only takes one costly financial mishap to set you back for years. This is why I created a basic personal finance book for total beginners. With these concepts you can use the other books in the Smart Money series to further build your knowledge of personal finance topics.

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

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

This personal finance paper will concentrate on the insufficient amount of guidance that is available concerning student loans. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how prospective and current college students are ill prepared in their education and understanding of student loans. Three major issues that will be outlined in this paper include the large majority of college students are no longer able to pay for college out of pocket due to the rising costs, the effect that national debt has on students degrees, and finally the lack of early financial education to make crucial decisions. Strategic recommendations these issues include for students to

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.

This research paper was located in the ERIC data base system of the academic library of the University of North Florida. The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) is an online digital library of education research and information; ERIC is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the United States Department of Education. Under the academic library ERIC, the research terms used were financial education, financial literacy and student loan debt. The study comes from the Journal of College Student Development published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

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

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

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

Unless junior takes a personal finance course, he’s unlikely to get a financial education in college either. This despite an investment of four or more years, and tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees. It’s hardly a surprise then that so many young people graduate from college deep in debt, and often ascribe their situations to complete ignorance. Given the lack of education in the area of personal finance, that seems to be a legitimate claim.

Although the reliance on student loans continues to increase for college students across the nation, the vast majority of American teenagers are not required to attend and complete a Financial Literacy course before graduating high school. According to Jillian Berman, only five states scored an A on the 2015 Report Card on State Efforts to Improve Financial Literacy in High Schools, and those same five states are the only states in the country that require students to take a dedicated semester of personal finance courses before graduating (Marketwatch.com). There is an obvious problem with the state efforts to properly educate finances when 14 out of 50 states rank in at a failing grade. Money is an essential asset to life on Earth, and proper education on financial management is vital for the basic requirements to sustain life. Education on how to manage money in order to afford food, shelter, clothing should be the main priority of the Financial Literacy courses. More in-depth are topics

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.

Financial literacy is not part of the American education system. When I was in high school, nobody taught me how to plan for retirement, nor did they teach me how to file my taxes, and they sure didn’t teach me the importance of money management.