Y’all have chosen…how to deal with the issue of improving financial literacy in the U.S.
This seems to be an instructional area that is gravely absent from schools…and has been for decades. I don’t remember ever having any training in the subject in school. I was given some vague ‘stay-out-of-debt’ counsel as I reached adulthood. But the strategy that had been employed by my parents was no longer feasible for my generation (savings bonds—which had been their go-to savings plan—became a much worse investment as I entered adult life, and the first home mortgage my husband and I took out had interest of over 10% and a balloon payment we were never going to be able to make). We learned hard lessons from our own bad experiences, and picked up most of the rest of what we know in passing. The main lesson that we passed on to our kids was the same as had been passed on to us: stay out of debt. I hope our kids are taking that more seriously than we did.
I read scary stories about the extent of consumer debt. I see ads for services that allow you to make even the most minor purchases on credit. How do we fix this lack of financial literacy that makes so many Americans such easy prey?
What are your ideas on this subject?
Well I am a complete flop in this regard. I struggled to learn how to balance a checkbook on my own and fervently wished many times that high school had offered basic life survival classes like how to change a flat tire, balance checkbook, etc. I never trusted credit cards and to this day only have a debit card (which I still don't trust) I also never trusted investments which may or may not have been a good thing. I think I absorbed my grandparent's generation of Oklahoma dust bowl depression finances and never grew out of it.
The student loan scam. The lie that kids need a piece of sheepskin from an indoctrination factory to have a nice job and life. And that taking out $100,000 loan or more is worth it. I think academia should be forced to pay for this huge scam they perpetrated on gullible kids. And to some extent, parents too, who wanted white collar kids pushing paper at some NGO vs fixing plumbing. Ivy league Academia has become a punch line but their heads are so far up their arses they will never see it.
What to do about the 1.7 trillion in student loan debt? Foist it on the taxpayer? Empty the coffers of the endowments first.
Here’s the money lesson—a fool is easily parted from his money by shisters.