Why is Financial Literacy not taught in school? It is obvious that there is a need for financial Literacy classes however it is not taught in school whatsoever. From a young age we are taught about science, biology, math, english, history, art, music, and the list goes on and on. We are taught about basic things that need to be learned. We are not taught about money at all though. It is actually quite sad. Growing up getting your first credit card after just using a debit card your whole life. You are given this tool that will make or break your financial life and you are given this “toy” with no manual. The credit card has minimum payments that will keep you in debt for years, some individuals believe that the minimum payment is what needs to be paid and that only. Osme believe that you can pay a credit card back whenever you have the money. A credit card was put in place so that you can continue to owe money. Credit Card companies especially ones that do not charge an Annual Fee do not make money off of individuals paying off their statements every month. They make money off of individuals missing payments and owing money. I was once in a lecture and my teacher brought to my attention that if you do not pay your credit card bill you can settle in court. He explained that oftentimes you can settle for much less than what you owe. I was very interested and confused on how this can happen. After doing more research I found out he was not lying. The problem with this method is it is frowned upon. Jobs especially in the finance field look at your credit history and specifically if you have settled with any credit card companies before in your life. They look at these things to assure that you are trustworthy and are responsible with handling money. Maybe you don’t buy the smartest things but at the very least if you buy it you pay for it in full and take responsibility for the things you have bought. Also doing this thanks to your credit score and that makes it impossible to get loans that an individual would use for a house or an apartment or even to get a car. Bad credit is something that is highly frowned upon and has financial implications, so why is it that people are not taught about these things when in school. I start to think about the economy and how America has the best economy in the world. I start to think about how the system works, and how America is the land of opportunity. THe knowledge out there but just like many things in this country success a lot of times if you are not a trust fund baby is merit based. In other words no one is going to give you the cheat code to win the game you have to figure it out yourself. I looked back to my jobs and my life and how every year I make money and it seems like by the end of the year the money is nowhere to be found. Where did all of it go? It went to the economy , excessive spending by us the people is why this country has such a great economy. The value of the dollar comes from us the people and how we continue to spend it for everything little and small. There is no value in a currency if the people do not use it. I look at the covid stimulus payments. We got the money and it went straight into the economy. There was no waiting no let’s save this for a tough time , the money was given to us and put straight into the economy. Americans do not stop spending whether its a credit card or cash. It is so easy to spend money and it is purposely made like this. Just think about every dollar you have had since a kid and what if you had saved it. Most kids have no bills, no reason to spend, they spend on their own free will, they find things to buy. We carry this into our adult years. We spend no time thinking about how to compound this money over time we think more about what we will spend it on and how much we can get with the money we have gotten. This is not by coincidence, this is by design. It is on you to find the info to get out of the endless cycle of spending. These are things taught at a young age. It becomes even harder to do when you hit your 20s. No matter who educates you, no matter who tells you and assists you to get on track, the chances of you reeversing your habits built up over years is slim to know. That is why we are not taught because the system leaves it to you to get education on these things but by the time you get the info and start to learn a lot of times it’s already over. Because the habits you have created will take years to break most of the time. Lack of financial literacy keeps this country rich. Imagine if when we were kids we were taught to spend frivolously and to only get things you need. And that when you get a credit card, pay it off immediately because you end up getting points which are free money and you can stack these points up and go on a free trip. If we were taught this the economy would not flourish as it does now. The economy benefits from reckless spending and lack of financial literacy. America is a business first. I never was taught about finance so I had to make mistakes to learn. I honestly think that tools do not change habits. THe only way to change a habit is to not do the habit for a very long time. Credit is one of the only ways we put trust in the economy now and this is because of 2008 collapse. During the collapse credit score was a non factor and people with default history and bad credit were getting loans to buy houses this led to the collapse as these individuals were not paying their mortgage. I see that caring for a credit score is very important because banks want to be sure that people will pay their money back.I do not think it is fair for credit scores to be viewed negatively when people are spending credit on medical bills. Medical bills are very expensive and a lot of people use credit cards to cover the expenses. It is obvious that this is not fair and care for medicine and hospital bills should be more affordable. Also when people are taking care of their necessities with a credit card. The money problem in America is very broad and needs to be fixed. Inflation is at an all time high and wages are not going up. 

Sources 

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2023/05/16/1176189034/the-case-for-financial-literacy-educ ation https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/02/15/middle-class-financial-security/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/13/heres-one-way-stop-living-paycheck-pay check/

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.