Essay on a Financial Future

📌Category: Life, Personal finance
📌Words: 687
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 22 June 2021

Essay on a Financial Future 

Are you a tax evader? That’s a question for yourself; I wouldn’t know. I don’t know the first thing about taxes or debt or investing or credit... Put simply, I am financially illiterate. Just as most students in high school are. From my perspective, the high school curriculum seems to be modified constantly, and I ask myself: why don’t they teach us about finances? All students need a proficient level of financial literacy in their lives and to assure this, high schools should include mandatory financial education in their curriculum. If that expectation isn’t being met, we, as students should take matters into our own hands.

56% of people under the age of 35 labels themselves “educated” in the realm of finances. After living 35 years on this earth, after going to school and paying off debt, after buying a house only 56% of people understand how money works. That’s insane. By 35, almost everybody has obtained some kind of post-secondary education, which means that almost everybody had some student loans and debt. Tuition for an undergraduate degree in Canada has increased 50.23% since 2006, and such elevated costs require knowledge on how to manage the debts and loans that go alongside it. Sure, there are many families with Registered Education Savings Plans (RESP) but not all families have the wealth to invest enough money into these accounts, and yes, there is a bounty of scholarships up for grabs each year, but there’s also at least three or four bounties of students. Not everyone gets scholarships to help with school financing, but if all students were taught about debt and savings in school, tuition costs wouldn’t be so daunting to upcoming post-secondary freshmen.

Imagine this… You are now out of university and are 30 years old and married, however, you are also a part of the remaining 44% of people under 35 who are uneducated financially. You and your loving spouse are trying to become homeowners, only when you apply for a loan, you’re denied because of a poor credit score. It’s a common scenario and if you don’t take interest and action in your financial education rejected loans will only be one problem of many. The fact is everybody needs to be financially literate to thrive in adulthood. High school is a perfect time to get the ball rolling because students can become accustomed to healthy financial habits at a young age, building a strong foundation for when those skills become needed.

“What do you want to do when you grow up?” The answer always varies from student to student, meaning not everyone will use math in their job, not everyone will use art or physics or history in their jobs; however, money will always be present no matter which occupation is chosen. Is it so much to request that students learn how to manage “the realm of finances” along with the other courses in high school? If this content was taught in school maybe we could increase the shockingly low statistic from 56% to something more acceptable like 80%. Some eccentric people will say that “there are so many other courses offered at schools like accounting, economics and marketing. A mandatory course for financial education is unnecessary.” Truthfully, that is not the case. First, not all schools have such an abundance of courses, and those that do probably also have more captivating electives like woodwork or culinary arts, which students will more likely gravitate to than something as bland as accounting. Also, students only have one or two slots open for electives even if we wanted to take these economics, accounting and business courses there is simply not enough time in one’s schedule. The solution is so clear, yet it seems to be just out of reach. One mandatory course to rule them all.

In 2011, 84% of people wished they were more financially literate, from that time, not much has changed. As students, we don’t choose the curriculum that is taught at school, but if finance is not taught there, then we must do it on our own. Not much has changed since 2011 because 84% of people wished they were more financially literate instead of taking action to ensure they were more financially literate. Money is such an essential component of modern adulthood that actively choosing not to learn about it is equivalent to “choosing immobility as a means of transportation” (Life of Pi, page 31).

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