Should financial/investment classes be required in high school?

[baba]

Should basic financial and investing courses be required material for high school? It is incredible to me that we teach so much else to our children, but neglect to give them a basic personal finance background before they enter the real world. Perhaps this is ONE of the root causes to our (USA) debt ridden society.

[MatticusMania]

I thought that was covered in economics? It wasnt?

But if Im mistaken, I would say definitely. People need to learn (and high school is a good place to teach them) not to exceed their means.

[CamMcIntyre]

I think they should. I just finished reading 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad'. It has peaked my interest in investing & with how bad the stocks have been doing, I think it's perfect time to get in.

So-more books on investing & financial management before I commit to anything. This gives me time to save up so I can open an account somewhere.

[MyUsernameHere]

What happened with that. I thought they covered it in school too. We used to have to keep mock checking accounts for ourselves when I was in junior high...and that was in freaking KY for @#$% sake.

[Jeremy Crockett]

It sounds like a very solid, intelligent thing to do... it'll never happen. Today's educational system seems to be more interested in "feelings" and emotions rather than education.

[IconBasser]

yes, they absolutely should require it! too many people don't know this stuff now-a-days.

I'm in AP economics right now, and it doesn't cover any of this kinda stuff.

[fdeck]

Here's an idea: Include some basic finance as part of the math classes. My hypothesis is that the real underlying problem is that people lack the basic math skills and the confidence to apply those skills to their real lives. For example, figuring out how much a loan costs is not an economics problem, but a math problem. The inner workings of instruments such as credit default swaps are almost purely mathematical. Also, many economics and finance concepts are meaningless to someone who knows no math.

Sadly, economics is often taught with minimal math. A lot of difficult concepts become trivial when one understands calculus and differential equations.

I taught college algebra, which was the freshman class for those students who were not destined to become engineers. Many of my students were planning on majoring in "business," so I put a business / finance spin on many of the examples that I gave in class.

Math also has the advantage that it is apolitical.

[IconBasser]

Originally Posted by fdeck

Here's an idea: Include some basic finance as part of the math classes. My hypothesis is that the real underlying problem is that people lack the basic math skills and the confidence to apply those skills to their real lives. For example, figuring out how much a loan costs is not an economics problem, but a math problem. Also, many economics and finance concepts are meaningless to someone who knows no math.

I taught college algebra, which was the freshman class for those students who were not destined to become engineers. Many of my students were planning on majoring in "business," so I put a business / finance spin on many of the examples that I gave in class.

Math also has the advantage that it is apolitical.

hm... good idea!

[fdeck]

In a similar vein, my mom taught high school chemistry, and many of her students were not college bound. She included units in her course on nutrition and nuclear power (there was a nuke plant in the town where she taught). Her students learned how to critically read the labels on food products. They did an eye-opening experiment where they extracted the fat from McDonald's french fries.

[hbarcat]

Originally Posted by fdeck

Here's an idea: Include some basic finance as part of the math classes. My hypothesis is that the real underlying problem is that people lack the basic math skills and the confidence to apply those skills to their real lives. For example, figuring out how much a loan costs is not an economics problem, but a math problem. The inner workings of instruments such as credit default swaps are almost purely mathematical. Also, many economics and finance concepts are meaningless to someone who knows no math.

Sadly, economics is often taught with minimal math. A lot of difficult concepts become trivial when one understands calculus and differential equations.

I taught college algebra, which was the freshman class for those students who were not destined to become engineers. Many of my students were planning on majoring in "business," so I put a business / finance spin on many of the examples that I gave in class.

Math also has the advantage that it is apolitical.

Great post.

[CamMcIntyre]

Originally Posted by fdeck

I taught college algebra, which was the freshman class for those students who were not destined to become engineers. Many of my students were planning on majoring in "business," so I put a business / finance spin on many of the examples that I gave in class.

Math also has the advantage that it is apolitical.

I hope my algebra teacher does it like that. I'm taking online community college classes working towards an AAS in Business Management [transferring to a 4 year school w/the AAS]. I take Algebra next year. I am NOT looking forward to it. In high school, I struggled with math, yet in physics and other classes where all of the math was taught in an application setting-I did extremely well.

[dave64o]

Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.

[iamlowsound]

I took a class based around the stock market in high school, but that was in Canada and it was an elective.

lowsound

[UnsungZeros]

Originally Posted by fdeck

Here's an idea: Include some basic finance as part of the math classes. My hypothesis is that the real underlying problem is that people lack the basic math skills and the confidence to apply those skills to their real lives. For example, figuring out how much a loan costs is not an economics problem, but a math problem. The inner workings of instruments such as credit default swaps are almost purely mathematical. Also, many economics and finance concepts are meaningless to someone who knows no math.

Sadly, economics is often taught with minimal math. A lot of difficult concepts become trivial when one understands calculus and differential equations.

I taught college algebra, which was the freshman class for those students who were not destined to become engineers. Many of my students were planning on majoring in "business," so I put a business / finance spin on many of the examples that I gave in class.

Math also has the advantage that it is apolitical.

Excellent post. Excellent idea.

[tplyons]

Investments do not need to be taught in high school, and neither does corporate finance. Personal finance is another story, and was sadly only offered as an elective in my high school. I was one of the few who graduated from my high school and does not have out of control debt, by living within my means. I believe there is more self restraint that needs to be learned than finance, however.

I don't believe either should be required, as the last thing we need is a bunch of high school students blowing some cash in the stock market because they were "taught how to make money in the stock market" in high school.

[Alan Vorse]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Crockett

It sounds like a very solid, intelligent thing to do... it'll never happen. Today's educational system seems to be more interested in "feelings" and emotions rather than education.

Examples?

Yeah, because emotions and feeling are useless.

[MJ5150]

I think it would be a good idea. I took a class called Consumer Math when I was a sophomore. Great class that lasted all school year. We were given a fictitious bank accout with a reasonable amount of money when the class started and expected to keep it balanced and in the positive during the class. All the while dealing with loans, retirement, and investing. I learned a ton in that class.

-Mike

[MatticusMania]

I was introduced to the GATE program in the 4th grade. In 5th grade we had to take time out of our regular class to go to a special GATE class. In that class we were given $1000 to buy stock and had to track all of our stocks. Being and ADD afflicted 10 year old this didnt sit well with me.

But I do distinctly remember learning about banking, credit, loans and the like in my high school economics class, however, this could be do to the fact that I had a teacher who didn't like to follow the schools curriculum. He was also the greatest teacher that ever lived, the one and only Mr. Demke!

[jmeid]

I don't think so. Nothing like that should be "required" at a high school, the students will just resist.

I think the idea should be exposed to them so if they find it interesting they'll go out and learn for themselves. We shouldn't ruin something as great as personal investment by teaching it. Students learn so much more when they are interested and acquiring information themselves

[baba]

Originally Posted by MJ5150

I think it would be a good idea. I took a class called Consumer Math when I was a sophomore. Great class that lasted all school year. We were given a fictitious bank accout with a reasonable amount of money when the class started and expected to keep it balanced and in the positive during the class. All the while dealing with loans, retirement, and investing. I learned a ton in that class.

-Mike

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

I also really like the idea of incorporating it with a math class. Leveraging the subject to also provide a practical application of math is a great idea.

After high school I watched MOST of my friends acquire debt unnecessarily, miss bill payments, and screw up their credit. It was a learning process for sure, but with real money and credit at stake. History and physics are very interesting, but I feel you'd get much more benefit for your time and efforts by acquiring personal finance knowledge.