We need to push two major initiatives in education: the ability to code and the ability to manage finances.
England lacks proper financial education too, it wasn't until I was 18 that I found out how taxes worked, up until 18 I thought the taxes paid were flat rate (eg: 20% on everything or 40% on everything, vs. 20% on the first x...). Recently the company I work for offered me a pension plan, after talking to a financial advisor I discovered just how valuable starting a pension young is, up until that day I thought a pension shouldn't be a consideration when young. Super simple and super important things, completely ignored by education.
Thankfully for England there is a really great consumer rights person called Martin Lewis that does a bunch of consumer finance things and recently he's been pressuring the government to introduced compulsory financial education to schools and it very recently was confirmed there will now be compulsory financial education in British schools: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/family/2013/02/financi...
I do hope more young Americans realize the magnitude of obligations that they commit themselves into though. I've heard many stories of students enrolling in an expensive arts degree and then dropping out later as they realized just how much they would owe at the end of 4 years.
Or at least they'd be looking at different ways of financing college that didn't leave you with an incredible debt burden that prevents you from establishing a reasonable rate of savings.
Great universities are a tiny minority, and you're right -- they'll likely be fine. Likewise the local community colleges that focus on teaching and job skills.
The Southeast Directional States, on the other hand, are in big trouble.
What needs to be taught is delayed gratification, not needing everything and anything that will just get discarded or disregarded five seconds later. That, that right there, is corporate America's nightmare, Americans that stop squandering their money on inconsequential things. Could you imagine what would happen if Americans even started..... dare I say it.... save money.
(Yes, that's Senator Elizabeth Warren.)
The Balanced Money Formula they present in the book is the most realistic and least gimmicky financial management system I've ever encountered. The book is a quick read -- I finished in a few hours -- and when I was done I had a very clear picture of what things were putting my finances out-of-balance and what I needed to do about it.
For me, the answer was to pursue better paid work in a more affordable city. I have since achieved those goals, and as of last October I am pretty well in balance -- I still have some debt, but there is enough room in my monthly budget to both pay it down and save for the future, while at the same time having enough money for my must-have expenditures and a healthy budget for "wants". IMO the wants budget is one of the best parts of the Balanced Money Formula -- Warren and Tyagi assert that financial asceticism is counterproductive and that everyone deserves to have a wants budget, no matter their income.
There are a handful of books I've read that I consider to have changed my life, this one is ranked #2 or #3 in that list.