It’s common knowledge that kids today aren’t learning the same things that we learned when we were younger. Take cursive, for instance. Forty-six states have implemented Common Core Standards on at least some level, which eliminates mandatory teaching of cursive in the elementary school curriculum. While children are instead learning how to type and use iPads — a needed skill in today’s technology-based word — it’s resulting in a generation of kids who cannot write their signature or read the Bill of Rights.
And, as many would probably assume, teens are also not getting a decent financial education in school. As a result, we have seen an influx of young adults who are uneducated about basic personal finance and how to properly manage their money.
The JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy spent over a decade measuring financial literacy, with one aspect being the literacy among high school students. What they found was discouraging.
The survey asked students a number of questions on personal finance — covering topics such as retirement, credit cards, savings, and insurance — and the majority of kids failed each year. The first year surveyed, 1997, the students scored an average of 57.3%. A few years later, in 2002, this dropped to a 50.2% score. Then, in 2008, this dropped even further to a shocking score of 48.3% correct.
Mind you, these are basic financial literacy questions, and these children are obviously not getting the education they need. They are going into college and their first careers without really knowing how to manage their finances, save their money, or invest. Many of them have no clue how to file their taxes, either. This could end up being a frustrating, and even costly, shortfall.
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Not surprisingly, the kids realize that they’re lacking. USA Today also reported that most students would even grade themselves as failing at their financial education. A more recent survey by U.S. Bank found that 65% of high school students across all 50 states and the District of Columbia ranked their financial knowledge as insufficient. Testing of these children’s states found that they were right, with more than half of them scoring a grade of C or less on the basic test given. In fact, 29% of them got a D or F.
So, these findings beg the question: Is a class on money management appropriate as a requirement? After all, this is a skill necessary to function properly in life. As one becomes an adult, with adult responsibilities, one must know how to correctly balance a bank account and understand credit card and loan terms.
But does personal finance fit alongside history, literature, foreign language, sciences and mathematics, art, and music — the “staples” of all public high school curricula throughout the United States? [click to continue…]
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This technology makes it much easier to keep our hands off our own money. This should be one of the best things that can happen for the state of our own personal finances. Pay checks are delivered right into our bank accounts. Employers don’t send cash to their employees’ banks, they transfer “electronic funds.” The banks receive instructions electronically and increase the balance in your checking accounts overnight.
Going back to the original bartering system, the things we make have intrinsic value. As you increase abstraction by using money that represents those things, the credit that represents that money, the digital bits that represent both credit and money, and the automation that keeps your brain away from the decision-making process, the real value becomes further hidden.
I like these cookies, so I usually buy a box each year. Although I’m driven partly by my enjoyment, I’m also driven by guilt. One box of Girl Scout cookies is as far as I’ll go, however.
When considering the idea of following a passion, particularly if that passion doesn’t naturally coincide with a potentially high-paying career like mathematics or engineering, I find that Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is an appropriate metaphor. Following your passion is related most to the top of the pyramid, self-actualization. All the issues pertaining to the levels below self-actualization must be met before a quest to reach one’s full potential can be moderately successful. Because of these pre-requisites, paving one’s own way to create a successful life that doesn’t rely on typical social structures (like corporations) is rare. 
