Tres. dept. wants mandatory finance education.

[ChargedUp]

This is something I've always been a proponent of. I've taught my kids about FICO (and myFico!) and the importance of using credit wisely and maintaining financial stability.

If you want to bring default rates down, this is a good start.

[VPExecutive]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I think that it should be mandatory in high school or when you sign for a loan. It doesn't make any sense allowing young adults to take +20K in student loans over four years without knowing the possible consequences first (Private colleges, I am looking at you and your stratospheric tuition). I am sure that if I would ask my bank 20K from my credit card in cash advances they will said "No" as soon as possible

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Should be mandatory in both high school and college in my opinion. 

If we're required to take a public speaking course before we can get a Bachelor's degree, we should also be required to take a finance and economics course. 

[Anonymous]

If it was too difficult to get credit, then how would all these Companies make Money? They depend heavily on those people who carry Balances and pay high interrest, then become late or even over the limit.  That's a lot of Money annualy, compared to PIFers and just add up Swipe fees. Along with taking SUBs and running.

[SEAlifer]

I work in finance and I'm always suprised by the lack of knowledge people have about financial products. They make sure you learn fractions in school, a subject that basically never comes up in life after then, but they don't tell you how credit scores work, how to build up and mess up your credit, what's a good APR versus a bad one, nothing. It's really frustrating to me that I had to learn all of this stuff well into my adulthood and just from googling stuff online.

[Anonymous]

@SEAlifer it really is sad. I just started REALLY understanding it at about age 29-30. I’m 32 in October... That’s sad to me that I just didn’t get it, but also sad that schools didn’t bother to discuss any of it.

[Anonymous]

Well even after learning fractions in School, It still seemes as if it was a wasted effort a lot of people. As 15 years spent in retail has shown me, that people cannot figure out how much an item is at 25% or even 75% off. Or they're simply just too lazy to figure it out on their own.

So I tend to believe that even if there was a class on Finance, many people would simply forget it when it no longer suited them.

[Anonymous]

You’re right @Janus but at least these people were exposed to fractions and can understand the concept. In many cases, kids leave high school without exposure to the main topics of FICO, apr and what it incurs or how it accrues, compounding (outside of compounding formulae in algebra, which the teacher generally doesn’t explain very well...). Etc.

It would be nice if math teachers applied many of the situations and formula in math to real life situations too. It’s all just a matter of planting the seed in the child’s mind. At least they have the choice then to let it grow or ignore it. You can’t grow very well without a plant to begin with.

[iv]

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@Anonymous wrote:
@SEAlifer it really is sad. I just started REALLY understanding it at about age 29-30. I’m 32 in October... That’s sad to me that I just didn’t get it, but also sad that schools didn’t bother to discuss any of it.

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Perhaps not back then... but today? Yes, schools teach credit.  You may have only just missed that curriculum by a few years.

Rather than repeat it all again, here's a link from four years ago:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Mortgage-Loans/Whats-your-Real-Mortgage-Score/m-p/4205884#M178894

[Anonymous]

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@iv wrote:

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Perhaps not back then... but today? Yes, schools teach credit.  You may have only just missed that curriculum by a few years.

Rather than repeat it all again, here's a link from four years ago:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Mortgage-Loans/Whats-your-Real-Mortgage-Score/m-p/4205884#M178894

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And here's a link from 7 months ago (January 2019):

Financial Literacy Is Becoming a Requirement in Schools

"Recently, several states have made financial literacy lessons more of a priority for students even before they're old enough to get a job."

@iv , that was a great post you made back then! I had no idea any state had such a great financial literacy curriculum. I could see that post inspiring someone to start something similar in their own state.

[iv]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@iv wrote:

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Perhaps not back then... but today? Yes, schools teach credit.  You may have only just missed that curriculum by a few years.

Rather than repeat it all again, here's a link from four years ago:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Mortgage-Loans/Whats-your-Real-Mortgage-Score/m-p/4205884#M178894

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And here's a link from 7 months ago (January 2019):

Financial Literacy Is Becoming a Requirement in Schools

"Recently, several states have made financial literacy lessons more of a priority for students even before they're old enough to get a job."

@iv , that was a great post you made back then! I had no idea any state had such a great financial literacy curriculum. I could see that post inspiring someone to start something similar in their own state.

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Almost all states do have this sort of curriculum requirement today, to one degree or another.  NJ's is fairly good, but there are actually others than are even more comprehensive!  (And some that are ...less so.  And there are still a few states with nothing.)

The Brookings report referenced in the article you linked has a good summary of what the various states were (and were not) doing as of last school year (Table 1 starting on page 23):

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/ES_20181001_Financial-Literacy-Review.pdf