Should Schools Teach More About Personal Finance?
By Geoff on Sep 18, 2008 in Saving & Investing | 1 comment
Becoming financially literate is not a fundamental education principle in the United States. Maybe it should be.
We heard about an 18-year-old consumer who quickly accumulated debt on his first two credit cards. Then, he bought a car he couldn’t afford. This general pattern of irresponsible spending and lack of saving did not stop until he was 30.
Now, at age 33, our consumer friend wonders about his lack of financial knowledge. An interesting question comes to mind: should schools offer as many class hours on personal finance as they do on physical education?
Ed Friedman, a senior economist with Moody’s Economy.com, an independent research group, seems to think so. “Makes total sense, of course,” he says. “In the U.S., there’s an endemic of Americans who get maxed out and fall into financial problems.” Continued
