Beginning in the fall of 2024, Minnesota will make personal finance education, taken in a class, a mandatory graduation requirement…in public schools. When this new requirement is instituted, it will make Minnesota the 20th state to require education on personal finances. And it makes sense; how else would students learn the basics of financial literacy and personal finance management? Teenagers cannot be released into the world without a clue of how to manage their finances. Even during high school, as many students begin to get jobs and credit cards or look at choices for life after high school that involve major financial commitments, financial literacy is of utmost importance.
SPA needs to follow suit. Currently, there is zero financial education provided at SPA. How can this be? For a school that provides so many amazing educational opportunities to students, lacking this highly practical and necessary education is a mistake that needs to be remedied.
A common, albeit overused, complaint about the school system is that it lacks practicality. “When am I ever going to use this?” is a question asked all too often by SPA students. Financial literacy is something everyone can get behind. During high school, many students can feel trapped or helpless, understanding that they need to know more about “the real world,” but not having the opportunity to learn this important information. Being financially literate and understanding personal finances is a great first step toward being prepared for the real world.
Although personal finance is a broad topic, there are several skills that are especially applicable to high school students. Learning about basic saving strategies, interest accruement, taxes, student debt, and credit management would all serve to benefit students immensely.
While some people suggest that students should learn financial skills like these from their parents, this idea is disadvantageous for students of families who have not had the same access to capital or financial education. Moreover, just because SPA is a private school does not mean that all of its students have the same family finances. This variation in family finances, which can inform financial education at home, perpetuates inequities. Because those with more money often have more financial literacy, their children are much better positioned to succeed financially because of their access to a financial education.
Luckily, SPA already has the “infrastructure” needed for such an education. The recently added sophomore seminar class —which covers topics including time management, sleep schedule, drugs and alcohol, peer pressure, thinking about college, and personal identity— could easily fit in a unit on financial literacy. At this relatively young age, those who think about money are often criticized. “You have plenty of time, you don’t need to know this stuff yet” is painful to the teenage ear. If high schoolers need to know about drugs and alcohol or college, then they need to know about money. Keeping in mind the best interests of the student body, SPA needs to institute financial education.
