What is Digg?150 Comments
- DaWolfman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+58The problem in that scenario is that high school kids don't have money. When I was in college, I really didn't give a ***** about investing. Once I got out of college, everything changed. Now I'm reading about market fluctuations, the steadily-declining dollar, etc.
The old-me would call the new-me a loser. - jeffiek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+48Let's think this thing through. It's useful. It makes sense. It benefits the students. It doesn't require expensive lab equipment. It doesn't require a teacher with an advanced degree.
It'll never happen. - neoform, on 10/12/2007, -5/+48Basic law should also be taught.
How are we supposed to know our rights and duties if we're never told? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+35I also think that credit card companies should be banned from college grounds.
- AngryRepublican, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29100% of People Believe Grammar Should a Required Part of School
- NICU, on 10/12/2007, -6/+32It's been quite a few years since I was in high school, but our teachers taught us about personal finance, the problem is that no students listened. An introductory course at my college taught personal finance, and almost every math professor used personal finance in examples. Still the problem is that too many kids don't listen and assume someone else will take care of them.
- Dumbledorito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Add to this "how to be a parent," "how to do simple home maintenance" and "how to cook a meal that doesn't involve potato chips," and we'll be better off as a nation.
- monkeyrun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Lesson 1: Do not spend more than you make.
Lesson 2: Spend less than what you make.
Lesson 3: do not spend 10 thousand a month just because your credit limit allows you to.
Lesson 4: Pay off your credit card. - P373Y, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21someone is missing a be.
- WhiteIce89, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16And the most important lesson of all: "DON'T BUY SH*T YOU CAN'T AFFORD"
The single biggest financial problem facing this country. - InferiorWang, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16@DryvBy
My parents taught me not to waste my money on brand new cars. You lose 15% of your money the minute you drive it off the lot. - Digitalicious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13In my high school, I was fortunate to attend a class that dealt specifically on your own. It was offered to seniors only, and they called it Single Survival. In the course, we covered a lot of different aspects of living on your own. We studied job hunting, apartment hunting, lease agreements, personal finance such as account balancing, credit cards, check books, and so forth. It was a really fun course, and I feel like I'll use everything I've learned from it. At the tail end of the course, they also covered cooking on a budget, which was really fun. We actually got to cook. I think every school should offer a course like this, it's really helped me out.
- expertninja, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Free T-shirt with $5,000 debt! Act now on this amazing offer!
- Dumbledorito, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Plan for the future: Mandarin grammar. And punctuation classes for the both of you!
- hiswarlockness, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12My campus does this, actually. But they made an exception for the "official on-campus bank", M&T Bank.
Coincidentally, the president of my university is on the board of directors of this particular bank. Coincidentally. - beguiledfoil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Count me among the 10%. Personal Finance isn't ***** rocket science, force people to learn some basic math skills and think critically and you'll solve this problem and a myriad of other issues facing society.
I was talking to a coworker about this the other day, he was going off about how so much of school is a waste of time and they should teach practical skills, like how to do your taxes, etc. I thought that was *****, school doesn't need to teach you how to follow instructions it needs to teach you how to become a member of a modern society. The latter is far more difficult than the former, and I consider it the root cause of many of socities troubles.
The inability to manage ones own moneys is just one symptom. You can treat it explicitly, but people will find some other way to ***** up their lives. - eleventybillion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Actually the best customers are those who make the minimum payment on their balance for an extended period of time.
- adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Why is he being dug down? You can't tell me the fat cats at the head of these companies would want something like this. These guys don't want responsible card holders, what they want are people who miss a few payments every now and then and have to pay all those late fees, or go over their limit from time to time so they have to pay those fee's as well.
Maybe this should be a College senior required class.
"not necessarily so: the best customers are those that borrow money and can pay it back. just passing out credit leads to financial ruin for bank/credit companies. stupid people are bad investments"
Not really, if you go into collections on a card they WILL get their money from you. One way or the other. And you'll have to pay a huge amount of fees. They'll drag you through court and have your paycheck garnished, or auction off your stuff other then your house and car. - tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Yeah, That might be true. It's like what they say about subprime loans: the lenders don't expect to be paid back; they expect the borrower to default and then the lender gets the house to sell.
- pintomp3, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13i think the biggest opponents to this type of education would be the banking and credit card industries. their bread and butter is people who don't know how to manage their money. buy more, borrow more.
- DryvBy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@inferiorwang
That's if you care about reselling. I'm not. I'm keeping this car until it dies. - laudyms, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1010 % don't want it taught because they are benefiting from predatory loan practices etc. and they think most of us are domesticated animals anyway.
- P373Y, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12How can the submitter of this article that stupid?!
- brink668, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8life resolves around money period end of story ... why don't they teach it???
- Mootabolife, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7America had a -2% savings last.. that's a negative 2% savings.. I think these classes might be a good idea...
- siszam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8The problem is, schools would teach that debt is a tool and that everyone has debt. My sons teacher tried to tell the kids that everyone has debt and it's no big deal. As a family who doesn't believe in debt and has paid cash for our assets, we were greatly offended that a teacher would say you can't live debt free. Finances should be taught if opinions don't replace facts. I don't think that can be done though. Too many people have been brainwashed by credit card companies and their inability to live on their income. Do you really want a poor person or a person in debt to teach your children about money?
Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey should be taught in schools. - GraceMolloy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Basic Accounting. OMG I wanted to murder my ex (no not really) over crap like this.
Learn to Balance your Friggin' Checkbook!!!
There is absolutely *No Excuse* for bouncing checks. - fredrated, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"Personal Finance Should a Required Part of School"
Writing should a required part of school, also! - OYAHHH, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7For me,
It stunk. As a senior in high school I was forced to take a personal finance class. There the teacher taught writing a check, etc.
What class did I miss? I wasn't able to take trig because I was forced to spend a hour writing fake checks, etc.
Don't so blindly automatically assume that a good idea is a good idea. Your good idea held me back. - jull1234, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Sir, an economy based on credit card debt isn't really awesome. (damn you congress).
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"high school kids don't have money"
tell that to all the marketers who target them...
They have money, be it from their own jobs or their parents. And they spend. They don't have the sense to save. If a 16 year old understood the power of compounding he might save a little bit for retirement... - hiswarlockness, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@killinger: He means the companies that market credit cards to irresponsible students, not a ban on credit card use.
- d00ley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Our economy is driven by people not understanding personal finance. The corps will never allow an educated population.
- scispaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Most white people talk about stocks and bonds, etc., but don't really understand them. Hard to say what is worse.
- Blazeix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8In my high school, you take economics and government, but not personal finance. It makes sense to take government, so you know about your rights. Economics, though, I'm not sure was useful. Most people can go through their lives and never need to know how to find the Average Total Cost curves of companies. IMO, they should replace economics with personal finance, or maybe combine them.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I want to know how many teachers are available who really understand personal finance... I just can't see a kid learning much from a teacher who is swimming in debt.
Just playing devil's advocate. I firmly believe that this would be very beneficial to any economy/people. - krached, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think they should start by teaching the teachers how to add and subtract.
- manitoba98xp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6That's called ROUNDING. It's this magical little thing that lets us make numbers simpler so that they are easier to say and remember. Do you really think that the true number was exactly eighty-nine percent?
Didn't think so. - rootbat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6OMFG I was just talking to my friend about this.
Basic personal finance needs to be taught, as well as investing AND Small business finance would be great
want a really neat one TAX LAW!?!?! I learned calc, and when do i use that??? only when plotting a course... thats it... statistics prolly woulda been better. - TheUngod, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Agree with neoform. Law is one of the basic things our life revolves around. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, so you best know it. Also maybe a politics course. I wonder how many people voted for GW out of ignorance of the issues of government?
- qwickone, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7@adml
In case you didnt know this, most credit cards that go into default are sold off to a collections company for a fraction of their actual value. For example, say you have 1000 in CC debt that's in collections, the CC company sells it to a collections agency for 800. So they just LOST 20% on you. A credit card company wants a customer that borrows (read:charges) a lot and pays their monthly minimum every month. I work at a bank. The VAST majority of our income is interest, NOT fees. And we like it that way. You realize how much money it costs for us to call you when your bill is past due? We WANT you to pay us. - mrtroy32, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey should be taught in schools."
He has a high school curriculum that is taught in some schools, but not nearly enough.
http://www.daveramsey.com/hope/youth/ - GraceMolloy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6eh ... it's the difference of knowing *how* to use debt. Like with credit cards. There's no interest *IF* you pay the freakin' things. Too many people think they're a license to spend money they don't have. But used effectively, they're a wonderful tool for consumers.
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4If you'd like, you could research investing. Here, I'll start you off:
How Stocks Work: http://money.howstuffworks.com/stock.htm
How Bonds Work: http://money.howstuffworks.com/question723.htm
How Mutual Funds Work: http://money.howstuffworks.com/question727.htm - qwickone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Parents just have to start earlier, when they still have a lot of influence over their kids thinking. If parents start giving their kids like $2 in allowance when theyre 3 and then taking away $1 to show them that it's going into savings, that kind of stuff sticks with you because youre so impressionable then. And if you're kind really wants a certain toy, they should buy that with their savings. Then they learn the value of money. Most of my friends got some kind of allowance through high school (and some in college for that matter). If you teach your kids to always put a certain amount in savings, they'll learn the lesson. Doesn't mean they'll always be savers, but they'll be a lot better off than most of the financially burdened population.
- siszam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Dave Ramsey is a cult? lmao. Yeah, right. A cult of rich people or people who will survive the next economic depression. If you use debt and the world falls apart, the bank and other debtors come get everything you have. You might not even have a house or a car to sleep in.
I will have a paid for house, car, furniture, a savings account, etc. I will make it years without having to work while you will be homeless and penniless in what........one month, six months? Why? I refused to be a slave to risk and debt. Come on. Do you really want to live on the edge of a cliff for the rest of your life? That's not smart. That's sad.
While you say, "I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go", I'm saying, "It's off to work I go so my bank account can grow". A credit card is only a tool for credit card companies to take your money. Guess how much interest I paid last year. ZERO. My risk was zero also. So if that's a cult then honey, pass the kool aid. - UncleCrapper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It is, in British Columbia. You must take and pass the Consumer Education 10 course before you can graduate. We studied all aspects of personal finance from reconciliation of chequing accounts to the stock market and compound interest. As someone noted in this thread, however, a lot of kids really didn't listen because teenagers either only have just enough money to buy what they want or no money at all. Once you get out of college and actually find a paying job that leaves you with enough income for discretionary spending, that's when personal finance skills only seem essential to a lot of people. Those skills should have been well developed by that point.
And I completely agree with the sentiments that credit card companies should be not permitted to advertise or solicit on university or college campuses. - diggerphelps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The problem isn't necessarily that people don't know these common sense axioms, it's mostly that they ignore them.
After all, the neighbors drive new BMWs every two, take cruise vacations and have a plasma TV, they must be doing something right.
Criminals KNOW what they're doing is wrong, but the jails are full of guys who thought they would be the one who gets away with it. - killinger777, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6No thanks. Don't punish everyone because some people are retards. When I was in college I had a credit card and, like most people, I used it responsibly.
- Skrilla360, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5go back to grammar class first buddy
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