Note: In recent years, many states have changed high school class offerings to make room in the schedule for more honors, advanced, and college-level classes across the curriculum. This trend has led to the elimination of many vocational, technical, and daily living classes, including personal finance courses. A recent high school graduate, who is now a college student, has drafted the following letter to the editor about the impact of the discontinued personal finance courses.
Show Us the Money!
Dear Editor:
I am a college sophomore asking the Daily News Sentinel to support restoring the personal finance course in high schools. I asked Lee M. Holloway, PhD, a state economist and guest lecturer, why the state dropped the class eight years ago. She said that the state believed the course was a frivolous use of time in the face of the need to increase rigor with more college prep classes. If students cared about personal finance, then they could get the information on their own. The state also reasoned that the course content wasn’t really relevent to high school students’ lives. In my opinion, they were wrong, and now kids my age are paying the price.
Today my college roommate, another in-state student, had to drop out of school for at least a full term. He fell prey to one of the flashy credit card offers that over 10,000 of us on campus get almost daily. Like a lot of college kids, he was short on cash, and the offer looked good. Now he is paying the cost of past due fees and rising penalty interest rates. “I have a high school transcript full of advanced math classes, but I cannot stay in college, where they were supposed to help me be successful,” he notes sadly. He knew nothing about managing money and how to protect himself.
As a member of the working class employed at a restaurant, I see a personal finance course as a lifetime survival essential. Many of my coworkers, who are my age but are not in college, are living paycheck to paycheck. Since they did not get these lessons in high school, they face struggles with budgeting for rising gas costs, health care, and the impact of tax withholdings. Even when they put in extra hours, they cannot save enough for an emergency, much less a home. When the owner offered a meeting with a financial planner to talk about investing for our future, nobody came. They did not understand either the work that a financial planner does or how it could help them.
If school leaders think that there is not enough time in the school day to add personal finance, then they should visit a few Midwest schools like mine and my roommate’s. For four years of high school, we spent almost 120 minutes each week in a study hall. Kids took naps, went for coffee, and checked their email. A personal finance class in high school could be held during this wasted time. Sure, not all students would want to take it at first, but word about good classes spreads fast.
I urge our state leaders and educators to take this problem seriously. Help guide future generations into the realities of money. Personal finance is relevent as high school graduates exit into both college and employment. Show us the money!
Sincerely,
Kevin
