Au contraire. Selective colleges (however defined) tend to ignore non-college prep classes, like PE, health, shop, driver’s ed, and the like.
i completely agree that financial literacy should be an ongoing discussion, but like many things, the conversation needs to be adjusted to the audience.
in other words, the focus needs to be on things that are relevant at the time. an 8th grader that gets Christmas checks from grandma should be introduced to basic banking. a junior in high school should have a basic understanding of payroll and taxes. an ongoing overview of everything else can be included in the discussion as situations occur.
but to require a class of incoming high school freshman to take a course on the intricacies of mortgages is a bit premature in my opinion. they need fin001, not fin401.
I’m in VA, so my kids have to take economics and personal finance. In the last year or two, however, the school district also requires that all kids take an online class, so most of them usually take the finance class that way in the summer. It’s self-paced and has to be taken pass/fail - not sure how much they get out of it.
Not only a finance course but a course on “Living Essentials” should be mandatory. That way, kids would actually appreciate their parents more. Lol
"In my state, the problem isn’t that it is offered, it is that it is mandatory, and greatly complicates scheduling for some kids.’
Sounds like a problem with scheduling (and perhaps a race to squeeze in too much) and not with the finance course then.
Personally I think Personal Finance falls into that category of “great things that kids should learn.” There are many of them however, which is why making things like that mandatory can become never-ending. One could also add (not that I’m advocating; I think these things are great as electives):
Grocery shopping and cooking for health and value
Home repair basics
NY requires a semester of econ for a regents diploma when I attended. Not sure how much that helped as it covered the same material as the Basic Econ class I took one summer at an elite U and I’ve known plenty of folks who took Econ courses…including Econ/Business/Finance majors who really suck at managing their personal finances. Some of them were former senior colleagues who dug themselves such a deep financial hole that they were even hitting entry-level/junior colleagues like yours truly for “loans”.
On the flipside, I also know plenty of folks who never took an econ course in HS college…or even graduated HS and were superb at managing their finances. Some of the lessons I learned about personal finances were learned from such folks…others I figured out on my own without any prompting/instruction from others.
I don’t think a personal finance course…especially one which takes place over a semester and geared towards the LCD student at a given school will be of much help. Especially if students regard it as another form of despised “busywork” course to be taken to get one’s ticket punched for HS graduation.
Moreover, if a student needs a semester-long course to learn personal finance, that student has far bigger issues to worry about.
Agree with cobrat post #46. I am an accountant and have worked with/known others in my field who were great at their jobs but were terrible with personal finances despite all of the classes in Finance. D is an example of the opposite , she graduated from HS before the personal finance requirement in VA, majored in English in college and is excellent with her own money management.
S attended a magnet HS with a lot of specific school requirements. Thankfully he graduated just before the required class, because I recall this being a huge PITA for the students in his school many of whom already take summer classes in order to take electives.
No, not really. If a student takes all the cores (math, sci, eng, hist, lang) there is one slot for an elective left. (band kids have none!). Because my S18 had to take the 2 semester finance he had no room for what he wanted, which was a full year shop class.
His mistake was not taking it over the summer but he had other plans and we recommend but do not force.
Yes, this^^^ my S is a band kid and was in this situation. He took the personal finance class over the summer, but that was a miserable summer and it limited what else he could do that summer.
@Postmodern I don’t mean a problem with how a person schedules but with the structure of the scheduling in general. If students can’t take all needed classes and still participate in things like band, then it sounds like the school district needs to revamp how the whole thing works.
I agree that Personal Finance doesn’t necessarily need to be a whole semester’s worth of coursework, but it can be a partial credit type course. Schools can structure things to make it work.
“Grocery shopping and cooking for health and value”
My kids’ middle school still does this and most find it worthwhile (and fun!)
It isn’t always online. My kids took it, as seniors, in the classroom. Only one teacher and I absolutely hated him. He was just a jerk. The projects were stupid and he made them even worse. They had to plan menus and shop, but couldn’t buy frozen meals or have omelets for dinner. They had to buy a car that was newer than 2008 and buy new tires and insurance. They had to buy health insurance and it was the first year of Obamacare and it screwed up our computer at home with cookies and ads. Well, they were all 17 and 18 and the insurance companies assumed they’d be on their parents’ insurance and wouldn’t give quotes.
The course never mentioned checking accounts, W4’s, the cost of gas, getting a roommate to cut costs. You know, real life stuff. Interest rates? Late fees? Student loan payments? Never mentioned.
Our school let you take a test to get out of NY’s Econ requirement. It can’t have been too hard, my youngest studied for a weekend and passed it along with the government test to get out of taking the Gov requirement. My older son took AP Econ and they rolled some of the Gov curriculum into that course. They offered two APs - AP Econ with Gov or AP Gov with Econ.
Well twoinanddone–there is no accounting for lousy teachers and lousy programs.
There are several good books about finance. I do think that learning about credit, debt (and how to stay out of it and get out of it), student loans, buying a car (that you can afford (probably before 2008), how to manage money and save are all good goals.
There are so many kids who haven’t a clue. Their parents live on credit cards and that is their answer. Student loans saddle many with long debt. I would probably tailor a course to the needs of the students-- budgeting, student loans, credit pit falls, options for car buying, checking accounts, renting an apartment, getting a job, saving money. I would make the course optional–6-8 weeks max.
No big projects but more discussion depending on concerns of the class. Definitely eggs for dinner and cars prior '08.
That is the epitome of a badly taught finance course.
Especially considering it’s not only folks who must count pennies who buy/keep using old used cars.
One thing which concerned/irked one aunt/uncle was how a cousin continued to use the same car he picked up USED as a grad student in the mid-'90s into this decade despite the fact he could afford to get himself a new luxury car and pay cash for it if he was so inclined.
He doesn’t feel the need…especially considering he enjoys performing the maintenance/repairs on it himself. So long as that old car is still running with great gas mileage, he will keep it running.
Agreed with cars prior '08, but the part about “eggs for dinner” would have been met with puzzled looks and snorts about “extravagance” by older aunts/uncles, grandparents, and older multi-generationed American neighbors who were children/adolescents in the '40s and before as eggs(including powdered eggs) before the introduction of mass factory farming in the late '40s*.
- MST3K did a nice spoof of the 1948 "Chicken of Tomorrow" video short which discusses practices which would be put into practice in the '50s that greatly lowered egg prices to the point they were no longer regarded as an extravagance unless one was from the well-to-do or from an area with exceedingly productive chicken/egg farms.
Cobrat–I’ll disagree about eggs. Maybe it depends on where you lived. My grandparents had their own chickens, Eggs were the cheapest food source. Depression era. And growing up in the 50’s and 60’s eggs were a regular dinner time menu item. No matter the time period they are cheap now.
One family story is that my grandfather raised a cow (meant for slaughter) but unfortunately the kids named it “Daisy” which sort of ended that as a food source–nobody could eat “Daisy”. 
A required book should be “The Millionaire Next Door”.
It’s an old book but really highlights that people with money don’t always show it.
NEVER make assumptions about people and their wealth based on appearances.
Similar to cobrat we had a VERY rich doctor years ago who drove the OLDEST car (a TRUE clunker) every day. People talked about that car all the time.
He saved people’s lives. His patients loved him to pieces.Time to stop talking!
Well, you’re one of the exceptions I noted: areas with exceedingly productive Chicken/Egg farms. Before the '50s, most Americans outside of such areas didn’t have such access unless they were well-to-do.
My HS offers a course in Financial Algebra, which is basically learning to balance your budget, allocate your expenses, etc. My friend’s son is taking it and she is very pleased with it. Her background is in corporate finance so I accept her assessment of the course.
My sons did the Boy Scout Merit Badge on personal finance, which requires the boy to keep a 90 day budget, plan for the purchase of large and small items and the like. I found this program to be excellent. I have spent time with my D, educating her about money. She’s basically frugal but doesn’t see the need to put away for retirement yet. Oy!
My youngest son works for our SD and I made him join the state retirement plan. He has about $15 in it but he’s not yet 18. I taught him about the “miracle” of compounding and letting money grow and he understands.
When my daughters did the finance program and had to buy the 2008 or newer car, I was driving a 2002 Honda. I’m STILL driving a 2002 honda.
And we had eggs for dinner two times this week. I like eggs. When they were in the class, I told my kids to use our real budget and slips from the grocery store (because otherwise they had to cut out ads or go to the store and take pictures of the items - he really was a bad teacher). The teacher rejected half of the items we, a typical family, ate for dinner.
The entire thing was backwards. College kids buy $20 worth of food and that’s the food for the week. Peanut butter on triscuits? Okay, that’s dinner. The next week the kid may spend more carefully.
There was just so much more this program could have taught the kids about checking accounts and loans and using cash instead of credit. I never had parents who taught me, but I will teach my kids about banking and credit.