Agreed, but you can do something about it right here, right now. What book would you recommend for people teenagers or adult, to learn about personal finance? and how to manage a budget for instance.
Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
101–110 of 262 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#102Every recommendation to add "x" to a school curriculum should state explicitly what alternative activity should be cut to free up time. This could be another subject, sleep or childrens' free time. For example, a better question would be "Why don't we eliminate and teach finance instead?"
Secondary education typically includes some elective classes or even study hall periods. These suggested classes can even be a single semester, and may already be offered as electives. In fact, I took a 1 semester personal finance class in high school. I strongly support adding personal finance and logic (philosophy of arguement) courses to the core curriculum.
Financial education could begin at the grade school level and be rolled into math class as a practical application of concepts being taught. That could continue well into algebra 1 & 2. At a high school level you could address more complex aspects of finance as part of history and social sciences. We shouldn’t ever be teaching one subject at the expense of another, they’re all connected.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no windfall in poverty. In general, folks with money are able to have things like comfortable shoes, entertainment, and not worry about their electricity being turned off if they have a flat tire. Every "windfall" takes care of a need, makes you more secure with things like food and shelter, or gives you some mental relief by providing a few moments of entertainment. There is no saving for those other things…
False theories of poverty spread by people like yourself are the reason more people don't get the right advice to get out. They're told something crazy like "well yeah you just don't have enough money, too bad" The guy I'm talking about has windfalls - and when they come he'll feel so bad he goes out with friends and blows $30 on a meal. If he changed his celebrations to $15 meals using a coupon clipped from the pape…
Isn't trying to explain poverty by referring to two of your friends a massive overprojection?
There are indeed times when a problem could be solved on the higher level by managing resources better, if you actually have the hinterland. Yet not all problems are about the superstructure you built on physical realities, and sometimes you simply don't have enough money no matter how you budget, or not enough smart people no matter how you place them in an org. chart.
Casting every problem down to a problem of management & choice seems to me a lazy excuse to escape the reality.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#104There are a lot of underlying components to this question as with anything that's ever existed or will exist.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#105I have the opposite question: Why is our financial system so complicated it requires such an in depth education just for basic participation?
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#106Every recommendation to add "x" to a school curriculum should state explicitly what alternative activity should be cut to free up time. This could be another subject, sleep or childrens' free time. For example, a better question would be "Why don't we eliminate and teach finance instead?"
You could teach it as part of maths.
I think there's too much algebra in secondary school (and not enough of it in college).
Few people are gonna miss matrix multiplication after school.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#107This isn't true for all countries. I did my high school in India and I had to do tax returns (ex. calculate taxes for a working couple w/ mortgage, investment income, PF (401k) etc.) and financial calculations (compound interest etc.) as part of math class. I think it was in 10th grade ?? Don't know.
This is the baseline. Certain streams in high school had full blown booking keeping courses, accounting practices and stuff in 11th and 12th grade.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#108This isn't true for all countries. I did my high school in India and I had to do tax returns (ex. calculate taxes for a working couple w/ mortgage, investment income, PF (401k) etc.) and financial calculations (compound interest etc.) as part of math class. I think it was in 10th grade ?? Don't know. This is the baseline. Certain streams in high school had full blown booking keeping courses, accounting practices and…
To clarify - do you mean Indian equivalent of 401k or did they have you do American income taxes in an Indian school? (Were that many folks planning to go to US??)
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#109I have the opposite question: Why is our financial system so complicated it requires such an in depth education just for basic participation?
Because the world is complicated and every human activity is financed somehow. Those activities have a variety of risks, time horizons, regulations, participants, etc. A big enough world will generate a lot of ways to cater to those considerations.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#110One of the issues with teaching finance to kids is that is a) boring and b) not applicable for the kids who need it most. If you are a wealthy kid whose parents allocated you a big savings account or stock portfolio to "play with" in high school, that's one thing. If you're a poor kid just getting by, finance seems like "a rich person's playground".
I was the child of two immigrant parents. Growing up, we were always on the verge of bankruptcy as a family. Always about to miss a mortgage payment or a payment behind. Yet I grew up in a wealthy New York suburb so I was surrounded by a lot of kids described above, whose parents were overjoyed to teach their kids financial principles using inherited family wealth.
I got lucky in my own way. By the time I was 15 or so, I knew how to program a little, and was already an avid internet user (this, in the late 90s). Thus, I could do a little programming, and do web design projects for money.
So I started to build up savings, real cash savings, by the time I was 16. But then, it dawned on me: my parents weren't going to be able to afford sending me to college. So, I knew I had to build up savings in the few years leading up to freshman year to pay for college.
Then, I got into college (thankfully with a big scholarship) and dumped my savings into tuition and living expenses. I also continued working through college and took on student debt. By the time I was 19 or 20... I was very interested in finance. But I still operated entirely on a cash and debt basis. With $100K in loans, depressed savings, and parents entering retirement age with no savings other than the home equity they had in my childhood home. It's at that moment that some financial education would have helped me a whole lot.
I bring this up because I consider myself fortunate. People less fortunate than me never manage to build up any savings whatsoever in high school, and, if they are so fortunate to go to college, are drowning in way more debt and student loan payments than they can afford. By the time they enter the workforce, they are still digging themselves out of that debt, not yet thinking about the marvels of savings, capital investment, rate of return, and compounding interest. I worked for a couple years on Wall Street and made every mistake possible in this regard. I saved money in a 401k with crappy allocations that didn't perform well, leading into the 2008 financial crisis. I did an early withdrawal on that 401k to self-fund my startup. I operated on a cash & debt basis for years while earning sweat equity on that startup, and never diversified personally until very late.
I suspect for most young adults in a wealthy country, the moment when finance education would make the most impact is either senior year of high school or in college itself, or in the first year or two of work. If you teach it any earlier than that, it'll be in one ear, out the other.
When I used to work in Brooklyn, the local library held financial literacy courses targeted at young adults in NYC, scheduled for after work hours. I attended one and it was very well put together, and very well attended. I think that might be the best timing/setting of all for this.