Opinion: The Need for Financial Literacy Education

The need for financial literacy is more apparent than ever. More and more people are becoming stressed by their finances and a way to stop this is by teaching them financial skills.

It’s time for financial literacy to be taught in schools. Four in seven Americans are financially illiterate. Only 24% of Millennials understand basic financial concepts. 64% of adults identify money as a significant stressor. 

Financial literacy is the ability to understand and adequately use an assortment of financial skills. These skills include investing, budgeting, and maintaining a credit score.

According to Possible Finance, 25 states require students to take a financial literacy course, an increase of four from 2020. Within those 25, only seven states have introduced half-semester classes that focus solely on personal finance. Although progress is slowly being made, there’s clearly room for improvement. 

The FINRA Foundation reports that adults who had state-mandated personal finance classes in high school are less likely to borrow high interest loans than those who were not required to take a course. While these classes are effective, they are also rare - 73% of people with high financial literacy scores claimed to obtain their education from personal experience, according to The Federal Reserve.

Financial literacy will help us as we step out of the red doors, similar to understanding our core values (purpose, curiosity, dignity, honesty) and being a Browning gentleman. The school has an opportunity to add a new dimension to the already phenomenal education provided. 

The ideal solution is a semester long class that covers the fundamentals of financial literacy, with an elective option further down the road that dives deeper. I’d also recommend a speaker series that features an alumni instructor present at an assembly, or a recorded lesson that students access.

In order to avoid the debt, stress, and uncertainty, financial literacy must be taught. The confusion surrounding personal finance, especially amidst the ever-changing financial landscape, can be quite easily transformed into clear, useful knowledge, and that process should happen at Browning.