Four-oh-one que? Bonds aren’t just a topic in chemistry.
It seems like the extent of most young people’s knowledge of personal finance is that payday is every other Friday, and if I complete my taxes by mid-April, I will get free money from the government.
A personal finance course should be mandatory for the completion of a college degree to teach students how to save, invest, and responsibly spend money. In lieu of that, you could always click here to find all this information and more on a handy personal finance advice website.
Only 17 states mandate that students take a personal finance course in high school, according to CNBC.
About 44.2 million Americans have outstanding student loan debt, according to MarketWatch.
It doesn’t take a mathematician to add those two facts together and determine that, by subtracting financial education from the curriculum, debt multiplies through the nation.
In the LACCD / UC / CSU system, we are required to take about 40 units to fulfill general prerequisites. These classes are meant to provide us with a well-rounded education that exposes us to different ideas and disciplines.
My professor calls them “cocktail classes.”
Sure, I can recite lines from Shakespeare to describe my depression. And I will forever know that a sponge spicule looks like the Mercedes-Benz logo, but what does that matter if my $10,000 debt and my nonexistent credit prevents me from leasing such a car?
IGETC and the CSU Breadth have no financial requirement except that someone must pay for the classes.
Eight in 10 Americans have some type of debt, according to CNBC. Nationwide, about 30 percent have debt sent to collections, according to the Washington Post. That debt can range from mortgage loans to payday loans and those who tend to take out loans are often in low-income households, have poor credit or are in between jobs while also failing to read more into about payday loans online and how damaging it could be to them financially if they are already in a dire financial situation. Credit cards and payday loans can be the most damaging loans to credit scores and bank balances as they tend to have high interest rates, making them harder to pay back. There are payday loan debt relief services available for anyone struggling with their lending habits and they can assistant anyone with their repayment methods.
Predatory loans and the absurd cost of college (read: not free) are a large part of the problem.
At the very least, an institution should provide college students with the knowledge to manage their finances if it isn’t going to stop being one of the primary sources of Americans’ debt.
Student loan debt is only just behind mortgage debt. According to Time, it exceeded credit card debt and auto loans when it passed the $1 trillion mark in 2012.
Fifty percent of students graduate with debt.
It’s no wonder that an embarrassingly large percentage of Americans have personal finance issues at several points in their lives.
A personal finance class would teach students about loans and interest rates, insurance, how to build credit, and how to save money for an emergency. If people were aware of all the options available to them in terms of their personal finance, they won’t have that overwhelming feeling of stress when they realize they can’t pay it back. Even ‘out of the ordinary’ options, like applying for a title loan through somewhere like Qik Car Title Loans, in which the value of your car can determine how much money you can receive in terms of a short term loan, could help to make a difference to your financial situation. There are plenty of other things I can’t list because I wasn’t taught financing throughout my public education. But there are things that you can do.
Predatory loan sharks are detestable for going after the financially ignorant, but the root of the problem is inadequate financial education.
Shakespeare’s Polonius once said, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” and that’s about as much financial education that I’ve received in college.
