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

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

#201

Post by Macha » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #168

Macha wrote: post #86

So in Ireland: In junior cycle (the first three years), we had a mandatory module "Business Studies". It had two purposes, the first was an introduction to the basics of the more specific modules available from your chosen modules in senior cycle (Accounting, Economics and Business). The second was to cover personal financial details, so it covered household budgeting, pensions (at a shallow level, e.g. defined benef…

Huh, that’s weird. Also went to school in Ireland; never heard of business studies being mandatory. It’s certainly not required by the curriculum.

I just checked and according to the government, only English, Irish and Maths (and formerly CSPE) are mandatory for Junior Cert. I guess the fact that basically every school in my home town made all students do Science and Business Studies must have been a staffing/scheduling related thing then.

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

#202

Post by leetcrew » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

pnutjam wrote: post #156

sokoloff wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in part, but completely ignoring the management and choice aspects to whatever greatest extent that they are present is also forfeiting one of the best local responses. I think that’s where the Starbucks and avocado toast tropes come from. They’re not 100% right, but they’re surely not 100% wrong either. I work with engineers who are making 6-figures and struggling with money or on course for a poor retiremen…

ok, now tell us how that applies to the family with 3 kids where both parents work and rent is 70% of their income?

did they know rent would be 70% of their income when they decided to have their first child? their third?

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

#203

Post by opportune » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

If you have a good grasp of math you can distill these into a pamphlet briefly describing what they are. I don’t think you’ll have any luck teaching the difference between a 401k and IRA to innumerate kids that have never had a real income. There are so many online resources to learn about this. I would rather children learn the academic fundamentals rather than random facts they will need to learn anyway

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

#204

Post by leetcrew » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #184

aliassmith wrote: post #43

Every 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?"

I would suggest replacing a chunk of geometry. Teaching students the names of the Platonic solid’s for example is seemingly vastly less useful than basic financial literacy. As a math class you can cover plenty of useful ideas like risk assessment at the same time. Alternatively, I would drop things to 3 years of English to add a year of Home Economics that covered basic cooking, practical nutrition, taxes, personal…

> I would suggest replacing a chunk of geometry. Teaching students the names of the Platonic solid’s for example is seemingly vastly less useful than basic financial literacy.

I don't have a good argument against, but this makes me sad to read. learning all the names for different shapes was the first (and last, until I got to college) time that I found math interesting.

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

#205

Post by opportune » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

mxcrossb wrote: post #28

roenxi wrote: post #15

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 co…

It seems like a really popular opinion that school should teach “life skills”. But as someone who left school not knowing how to do his taxes, cook his own food, or fix my car, I can assure you that the internet is more than enough of a resource. School just needs to focus on reasoning about the veracity of what one reads.

Yeah. I think this is essentially a form of anti-intellectualism where people blame their own ignorance (on something with lots of educational resources for those who want to learn) on not being forced to learn it. Schools shouldn’t be expected to teach everything. I would rather teach students the math necessary to be able to compare and understand personal financial strategies/tools than have them memorize the tax implications of them

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

#206

Post by bawolff » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #84

bawolff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if you dont need to know about school loans, how about car loans, morgatges, credit cards etc. If not, which communist utopia are you thinking of where you never have to worry about money, and how do i move there?

Credit cards are rare and pretty much useless in most European countries ( and damn right unusable in the Netherlands for instance). Mortgages and car loans are pretty simple due to heavy regulation ( they have to show the total interest, how much you will end up paying in interest over the lifespan, etc.), what's there to learn about them?

I mean i could say the same thing about most of the subject matter of this page. Most consumer oriented financial products are fairly simple, and yet people seem confused by them.

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

#207

Post by FlyMoreRockets » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #124

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are probably 10 guys like him for every person who actually is so broke there is no way out...This is what America's "poor" looks like, it is far more a mental state than concrete reality. No, this is what poverty looks like in the strawman you've built up in your head. I guarantee you the person you describe exists, and is just as you describe - but they're also not representative of American poverty. But th…

I won't speculate about numbers, but until I dealt with people with "spending problems", I had NO IDEA seemingly smart people could be like that! Simplest way to describe it is that their definition of "I can afford X" is "right now I have more money than X costs". Really! These people will of course always be poor, regardless of income, subsidies etc. How many they are is an empirical question, and I haven't seen an…

Living month to month from cash reserves is the general way to describe this mindset, and is is the reason the nation sees a significant increase in purchases of durable goods when tax returns roll in each spring.

Your idea of daily payouts is a very clever hack on the system and deserves a practical trial. It would be most interesting to see if it encourages inceased savings on this scale.

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

#208

Post by tracer4201 » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

aliassmith wrote: post #43

Every 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?"

I don’t think we have to decide between one and the other. For example, you can combine some topics together. A math class can teach math but instead of arbitrary equations with no practical application, you can connect the subject with a finance topic or economics topic. This gives you a mechanism to ensure students intuitively understand a concept as opposed to simply regurgitating memorized equations that they’ll forget after the exam.

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

#209

Post by Broken_Hippo » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #202

pnutjam wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok, now tell us how that applies to the family with 3 kids where both parents work and rent is 70% of their income?

did they know rent would be 70% of their income when they decided to have their first child? their third?

This is pretending a world is perfect. If pregnancy were easy to prevent, folks would have done it well before modern times. But that simply isn't the case. It doesn't matter if they knew the rent was that high, and it isn't like folks can avoid this in all areas.

Expecting a couple to never have sex is unreasonable and pregnancy cannot always be prevented. In some areas, access to abortion is abysmal, though in some areas, a woman can get the day after pill for emergencies - but that's hardly prevention.

As far as pregnancy prevention: The best prevention is actually male sterilization. Condoms break. Every single prevention method for women have a failure rate, including sterilization methods. For hormonal birth control, lots of things affect it, including some medicines.

And this is all assuming folks can afford medical care and prescriptions, which you need for most forms of birth control. I'm not sure anywhere in the US will mail condoms to you for free (unsure of how well spermicide alone performs or if they still sell a sponge for women). Heck, a young woman who doesn't want children cannot generally get sterilized, insurance often doesn't pay for it, it isn't cheap, and IIRC you need time off.

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

#210

Post by libraryatnight » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

johnnycerberus wrote: post #143

bartaxyz wrote: post #17

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 re…

Milk and honey in Czech Republic. I grew up in Ukraine and Romania and to be fair nobody earned any money after informatics high-school, we had to finish university and leave our families for UK and USA to earn a good income. My group of friends knew that if we stayed in Europe we will end up mostly on outsourced projects. Didn't know Czechia is an incubator of Rockefellers.

Be careful not to take big picture disdain and apply to individuals.