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Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

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Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

#11

Post by Jach »

It is. When I was in high school over a decade ago, I did take a required financial literacy class. Required by the state. So yes, students do learn about savings accounts, CD accounts, IRA, Roth IRA. They learn about stocks, mortgages. Various other things (like tax returns by hand). I don't think equity/derivatives/futures/bonds were covered. Another class I took that was an elective (so not required, but available) -- and possibly took it at 9th or 10th grade -- was on business stuff including how to actually go and start your own business, different types of businesses, etc.

Even suppose you make students take a second financial literacy course, at the expense of letting them study what they want (electives), it's not going to help. Despite all the core curriculum that already exists, just because you're forced to take a class does not mean you're going to learn its material. Maybe find a better way to solve your grand social engineering problem, because "more education" isn't it, and disrupts a lot of students from actually achieving a good education because they're forced to deal with required core BS aimed at the lowest common denominator.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

#12

Post by lifeisstillgood »

There is a need for the education yes (completely). But there is also a crying need for both tools and regulation.

Mint was a sort of step in the right direction - but basically we need software (agents) to be in the fight on our side - here is the list of your outgoings - 40% of people cancel their Gym subscription after three months - do you want to cancel yours?

Add on to this regulation - the EUs new Open Accounts (?) directive is a huge step.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

#13

Post by apatters »

My public high school in the 90s had a mandatory personal finance class. This stuff existed.

It got cut from the curriculum at some point over the years along with art, music, civics, wood shop, gym, and all the rest.

The question is where has all the money gone? Not sure about K12, but at the college level it's very clear, it's all gone to the administrative bureaucracies, with less going to the actual faculty and educational programs.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

#14

Post by LeCow »

tirrellp wrote: post #5
tcbasche wrote: post #2

I would argue that most people in life will never even go near the stock market let alone be expected to learn all those different bits and pieces. How would that help the average high school graduate?

Finance is more than the stock market. When I took a class on personal finance, I, too, wondered why it wasn't taught in high school. Personal finance gives you a basic grounding in: - How the economy works and how it affects you - Income taxes - Employee sponsored health care plans/FSAs/HSAs - Life insurance/annuities and health insurance - Budgeting and cash flow - How stocks and bonds work So yes, there is coverag…

I started studying economics, personal finance and financial markets a few years ago. I very quickly realised that although economics was the most interesting -- the study of how people interact with other people. It had the least to do with money.

I think a lot of people would change their political views/personal opinions if they understood a bit more about economics.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

#15

Post by roenxi »

Two reasons:

1) Financial rules are legal constructs - so not really suitable for academics. An academic syllabus might claim "Roth IRA implies X" then the law changes and it is no longer true.

2) The schools would be opening themselves up to legal liability if they accidental offer financial advice that goes bad (eg, invest in shares -> first time in history share market collapse -> angry people blame school).

No conspiracy, they just can't teach a moving target and the liability issues are - when you think through them - enough to be very troubling.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

#16

Post by hnick »

We learned personal finance in my public high school here in Australia, there was a dedicated humanities course (which includes wills etc too) but it also got touched on in maths with compound interest, probability, etc, where we used real life examples like gambling. And there were economics and business studies electives if you were into that.

It was useful, but I think these sorts of topics really benefit from life experience. When you haven't had to pay many bills yourself, it's hard to know what's important and it's mostly a meaningless jumble. Chances are that most kids forgot most of it by the time they moved out of home. But at least it's always easier to re-learn than to learn.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

#17

Post by bartaxyz »

I studied in Czech Republic and we had entire class spanning out over two years for economic and financial literacy at my high school. On the practical level, we were even tasked to fill out tax returns for a fictional company and we learned how to start freelancing & start a company. It was a high school in a rather small town on the south of Czech Republic, nothing special. I don't know how common this is in the rest of the country, but I remember that I and some of my classmates were leaving high school with income from freelancing already. There are very few people I know that didn't have a source of income when they finished high school.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

#18

Post by Jach »

masteruvpuppetz wrote: post #9

I am a proponent of Personal Finance training at high school. Life would be much more objective for people when they evaluate decisions based on relative benefits they get rather than making mistakes due to emotions.

Your high school (my junior high did it too) didn't do a "job simulation" event that is basically this? Everyone learned to balance a checkbook, be forced to deal with random events that disrupted a perfectly zeroed income/expense plan, and forced to deal with fixed prices and options. Reality has more opportunities to do better, but if you can't even master a simple simulation, it's probably a good sign you need help with managing finances.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?

#20

Post by OneGuy123 »

You can't just tell people how much taxes they are paying...

Eg in Slovenia (small EU country with 2M people) many workers (even old ones) have no idea how much money the country takes from their wage.

In school we covered stuff like "compound interest" but no-one ever thought us anything about taxes.

We have a net, gross and a gross-gross wage (gross-gross being the actual amount the company pays for the worker).

Most aren't aware of the gross-gross wage. The difference between gross and gross-gross is that it's basicaly the same taxes as between net and gross, but around ~80% of it. So this part is never talked about. When job wages are specified it's always in gross. So basicaly most workers truly don't see that the actual taxes are almost double than what they see in the difference between net and gross pay..

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