How many 18 years olds are making rational decisions about return on investment in 10-15 years time?
I'm not sure how you go about adequately informing students about a major life decision they are making.
I'm not sure how you go about adequately informing students about a major life decision they are making.
Anecdotes ahead, proceed with caution: Very average PA public school; had a "home ec" course, in which we did hilariously outdated calculations on things like interest vs compound interest. Not a single mention of what I'd call "practical economics"; e.g. actually balancing a real budget (which, FWIW, I've heard is becoming more a thing in certain districts), calculating the costs of goals, and perhaps touching on long term financial planning. When I first had to handle retirement fund options; you could have handed me a live squid for all I knew what to do with it. I got _lucky_. I had parents who filled in many of the gaps, and were willing to be a resource as I got older, as well as some more informed friends; but I worry about how people with less might have gotten by.
Oh, you mean the people who the banks gave giant loans to that it turned out nobody could afford and put everyone into foreclosure? Or their kids, who signed their life away to bankruptcy-proof loans on a degree they never finished, and can't get a job good enough to pay it back?
Have you seen what passes for a parent?
Yes, let's have those people teach their kids personal financial management.
Certainly not all, by a long shot. Here in Australia, you get a couple of grand to help you out when you have a baby, helping cover various initial costs, purchasing prams or whatever.
A friend of mine mentioned that he'd heard his 17-year-old daughter talking with her friends about having a baby because then you get that baby money. They saw it as a huge windfall and don't understand that all that money and more is needed to set yourself up for a child, nor that a child significantly changes your lifestyle and activity choices, especially for someone around 20.
It's not to say that everyone at that age has no forethought, but as a demographic, they're not good at long-term planning.