I'm surprised Khan Academy hasn't been mentioned yet: https://www.khanacademy.org/college-careers-more/personal-fi...
Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
251–260 of 262 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#252
I read somewhere that the reason is that it helps to keep the social classes intact.
However that doesn’t match my experience at all. I received pretty good financial education from my public middle school and public high school. I learned a ton about stock trading, business creation, and entrepreneurship. Just hosting a virtual stock trading simulation with the classrooms was plenty good enough. It forces you to become good at stock picking and asset allocation.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was deeply resentful of the school system in the USA by age 16. The only thing you ever heard, by word of mouth, was that taxes were paid yearly in April. I had the impression that if the stupid government is teaching me, they have an obligation/responsibility to see to it that I know something to basic as what I will have to do to avoid extreme penalization. After all, they went to the trouble of telling me to use…
This story resonates a bit with me. Some years ago, I did some freelance work. I made a good faith effort to do all the tax paperwork. In my naive zeal, I fucked up the forms, and somehow reported the same income twice. What they were asking me to pay was basically the profit I made on the project after expenses. I think I spent 80 hour assembling materials and corresponding with the IRS to try to explain what had ha…
I had the same problem in the past 18 months even with my accountant writing letters to support me the whole way. Only, my mistake was making a single monthly tax deposit in 2019 marked Q2 instead of Q3.
irs threatening to lock all my bank accounts (oh how I would love to get stuck overseas with no friends or family where I am and lose all access to money). Exorbitant penalties, and I can easily get them on the phone - only the person I spoke with had an IQ so low they replied to everything I said as if they thought I was mentally handicapped. The phone call was beyond worthless.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the eternal problem when you start with the status quo - a zero sum give and take - a battle betwixt pressure groups There should be a top down revision of the curriculum every decade - you start by defining the final result - after 12 years of compulsory education what does every citizen and illegal need to know and to what exact degree? What is the minimum number of hours of instruction that can be used to a…
The kids have already too many hours of schooling. It is packed and we are not at "minimum number of hours of instruction" at all. We are basically over maximum number of hours.
That wasn't related to my point at all
I completely agree on school being too many hours and too many days per year. I've read research on the inverse correlation it has with creativity.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#255This is something I thought about too, this should be the utmost priority to pass on to kids in school but they don't. I became somewhat financial literate late in my twenties and about 20K in debt. I'm debt free now but is something I wish they could've taught me in school. I sometimes wonder if this is done on purpose, after all consumerism is what empowers our economy here in America.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#256This information is readily available already. The only important thing is what’s not available. My brother got the best small business education possible by selling energy contracts door-to-door. He learned how every type of small business in NYC works: how much money they make, how much money comes from ‘other’ sources, how they manage cash versus credit income, how much gets stolen from them, who owns the business…
> Young attractive women also get an excellent financial education through dating, at least in terms of how much money people have made through various means, and how smart they have to be for it. I think this is yet another reason why women quit the engineering pipeline. This is an incredibly sexist take- women aren’t leaving engineering professions because they can just date someone wealthy. They leave because ther…
Just to clarify, I didn't say that. I'm saying that they learn which professions do well, and it's often not engineers, so they see opportunities for themselves elsewhere. Guys brag about this stuff and tell dates how they became successful. Lots of BS too. I'm always surprised by the things I learn through people that date a lot.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#257This information is readily available already. The only important thing is what’s not available. My brother got the best small business education possible by selling energy contracts door-to-door. He learned how every type of small business in NYC works: how much money they make, how much money comes from ‘other’ sources, how they manage cash versus credit income, how much gets stolen from them, who owns the business…
> Young attractive women also get an excellent financial education through dating, at least in terms of how much money people have made through various means, and how smart they have to be for it. That part of your comment is not only bullshit but also utterly misogynistic and sexist.
If I said that people learn a lot about business through meeting people at their church, would you say that was religious intolerance?
It's hard to respond because the words you chose have no specific meaning to respond to. It's just invective. However, I don't think you actually read the specific words that I wrote. It was a simple statement. Know that any elaboration beyond that is coming from your own set of assumptions.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#258This information is readily available already. The only important thing is what’s not available. My brother got the best small business education possible by selling energy contracts door-to-door. He learned how every type of small business in NYC works: how much money they make, how much money comes from ‘other’ sources, how they manage cash versus credit income, how much gets stolen from them, who owns the business…
> This information is readily available already. Most information IS (internet) and WAS (libraries) readily available... I hope you see the difference between availability and being part of a curriculum. > Young attractive women ... quit the engineering pipeline. It seems you are either trolling. Or your insecurities have lead you to adopt some mysogonistic crap.
> It seems you are either trolling. Or your insecurities have lead you to adopt some mysogonistic crap.
These words are charged with invective, but have no specific meaning. I suggest you re-read the exact words I used, and be specific about the premise of fact with which you disagree.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#259This information is readily available already. The only important thing is what’s not available. My brother got the best small business education possible by selling energy contracts door-to-door. He learned how every type of small business in NYC works: how much money they make, how much money comes from ‘other’ sources, how they manage cash versus credit income, how much gets stolen from them, who owns the business…
> Young attractive women also get an excellent financial education through dating, at least in terms of how much money people have made through various means, and how smart they have to be for it. I think this is yet another reason why women quit the engineering pipeline. You lost me there. What education do you mean exactly? Does automatically every "young attractive women" have this experience? Why only this subgro…
I mean that they get many anecdotes of success or failure in many different professions through dating, and traditionally men reveal themselves quite a bit more in this manner, and often date younger women. I hardly think this statement requires data to back it up, but there's plenty in Christian Rudder's book. I certainly have learned quite a bit through this type of exposure, but not nearly so much and not nearly so young as I believe I would have if I were a member of this subgroup. Anecdotally I've seen many exits from engineering that began from a realization that people in sales and finance were doing much less and much better later on in life.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn’t finance a part of the core curriculum at schools?
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Young attractive women also get an excellent financial education through dating, at least in terms of how much money people have made through various means, and how smart they have to be for it. I think this is yet another reason why women quit the engineering pipeline. This is a garbage comment.
At minimum I don't understand how their conclusion fits.
Because they learn that other career paths do better later on. Perhaps there's an experience gap I expected to bridge these statements. I have friends who have dated multiple fortune 500 CEOs, and they learn so much about their lives, and how they got where they are, their real problems, stuff that they'd never tell anybody else.