A lot of families are living paycheck to paycheck due to credit card debt. Most people do not understand how to live within their budget to avoid paying more for items when they are purchased on a credit card. The schools do not teach the students how to handle their money and most are not taught in their homes how to avoid being in a financial crunch by using credit cards to purchase items that are not in the budget. Some parents can not teach budgeting skills to their children because they have not learned how to establish a budget for their family, which continues the cycle of running up credit or bouncing checks. Do you think the school should teach these types of life skills or should they be taught at home.
I believe it should be taught at school. It's amazing how many really unneeded things they teach you (with the excuse of "you'll need to know this one day") but they fail at preparing their students for what comes after you finish school. In my case, we learned a whole lot about macro economy in Economy class, but we never even talked about credit cards or budgeting.
I definitely think basic personal finances need to be taught in school. Learning how to create a budget, balancing a checkbook, etc are basic life skills. I think some school do teach these skills, but I didn't learn them in school.
I definitely think that there is a real need for basic financial skills to be taught at school. It's funny that they'll teach kids calculus and make them read The Canterbury Tales, but not teach them useful things that they need to know to survive. I had a hard time financially in college because the houseparents at my group home did not teach any of the foster kids about money, so when I suddenly had to live on my own, I made a lot of costly mistakes and overdrew my first bank account. I also think that Home Ec classes should at least mention coupons and food budgets. Mine did not. When I see college students on Extreme Couponing saving a ton of money, and I recall my college days eating ramen noodles and barely knowing how to cook for myself, I wish someone had taught me in high school the basics of what to do. They shouldn't assume that parents will teach their kids these things. A lot of kids have crappy home lives.
I think it's important that young people are educated in this regard. However, there is an age-appropriate knowledge and such teaching should be progressive. Today, children begin to manage money since childhood, another triumph of the capitalist system. Despite that, I think that the main source of education should be at home. Parents have the primary responsibility to educate their children on issues related to everyday economics. I prefer that the child is away from problems related to money, but it's inevitable. As you claim, the high school is a good time to start such education. Many young people leave the school without knowing small details that would facilitate their daily life.
It is true the life skills kids need to be taught to should be taught gradually and should start at home but so many adults can not make a budget or balance their checking account and feel paying the minimum on credit cards is ok. Getting debt under control starts one person at a time and should start at home but if home does not teach personal finance schools should. A child should not come out of school not knowing how to cook, budget and balance a checking account.
I think it'd be really cool if they taught these life lessons in school so that kids can be prepared after highschool and know a little on how to budget their money.
Absolutely. When I was a kid at school in the 1960s, we learned some basic budgeting skills under the umbrella of domestic science, but life was much more simple then. It was before the days of credit cards and debit cards, and only wealthy people - who didn't really need it - could easily get loans and overdrafts. Despite what I learned in school, I still got in a mess with credit card debt, although now I'm well on the way to clearing it, thank goodness.
When I worked as a mortgage consultant one of the things we consulted the future home buyer on was their budget, to see if they understood the fact that the purchase of home is a large purchase which could require additional needs for a cash outlay to repair or upgrade an item in the house. Most of the young couples that came into my office had no idea what I was talking about, they had way too many credit cards, car notes that made me grasp for air and they could not understand why they would not be able to purchase a house. The truly sad fact is most of these people had very good incomes. In fact they made more than me. I have been looking to some programs that teach young people the personal finance skills needed to volunteer to teach at our local high school to get this information out to the youth of the area.
Personally i think it's really necessary to teach these life skills. The question is how and when, which need more consideration.
