College is too late for teaching basic financial literacy and Econ. The US has only 22 States that require it as part of their curriculum and with students increasingly needing to understand the longterm impacts of loans to finance college, we're creating data voids in knowledge base.
Inflation, interest, credit, etc, those are topics we need a better foundational understanding before college (assuming that we stay at parity with enrollment). We're asking young adults to enter into financed aquisitions without them understanding basic present value versus future value implications.
I'm on the Behavorial side of Econ and mapping out the decision tree of young adults continues to expose the failures we're making in educationing them on finance/econ early enough so that they don't make poor decisions later due to a lack of understanding.
I 100% agree with you. We have some great efforts being established at the k-12, but not enough. I also think college level economics education needs to be improved. We have work to do!
LOL -- what we need is required financial literacy for PARENTS of upcoming college students! High school kids mostly are not the ones making the decisions, and are by and large focused on social interaction, not practical finance.
Given there is rarely a "one-size fits all" approach to college financing, that opens up the asymmetric knowledge bias component. Assuming that the parents have experience or make good choices for themselves and therefore they will help make informed decisions isn't a given outcome.
Large difference between a family that creates a 529 or other savings methodology and one without the financial means. (How many parents don't inform their kid there's no money until Senior year?)
Starting Freshman year, schools should be offering tools to help educate the students so that they can ask better questions regarding WHICH college is affordable for them or their family. (Offering the same to parents would also be useful.)
Only 36% of parents pay for all, the remaining expect their child to contribute...
You make valid points. I would caution against not investing in literacy because it doesn’t solve all the issues. We need to invest in both solving systemic issues and improving literacy.
Abdullah- I agree with you about all you say; however, please include a course or two in social psychology. It is closely intertwined with economics, and every economist should have this background.
Understanding that every decision has trade-offa is fundamental to thinking about the world. The evidence that financial literacy matters to better economic outcomes is not perfectly clear. Most people would benefit from somebody they trust who has incentives aligned with their financial life.
Thanks for clarifying. Literacy doesn’t solve systemic issues. One can be the best and optimize decisions, but if they don’t have the chance to do so or don’t have access then it won’t lead to better outcomes. I appreciate your input.
College is too late for teaching basic financial literacy and Econ. The US has only 22 States that require it as part of their curriculum and with students increasingly needing to understand the longterm impacts of loans to finance college, we're creating data voids in knowledge base.
Inflation, interest, credit, etc, those are topics we need a better foundational understanding before college (assuming that we stay at parity with enrollment). We're asking young adults to enter into financed aquisitions without them understanding basic present value versus future value implications.
I'm on the Behavorial side of Econ and mapping out the decision tree of young adults continues to expose the failures we're making in educationing them on finance/econ early enough so that they don't make poor decisions later due to a lack of understanding.
I 100% agree with you. We have some great efforts being established at the k-12, but not enough. I also think college level economics education needs to be improved. We have work to do!
LOL -- what we need is required financial literacy for PARENTS of upcoming college students! High school kids mostly are not the ones making the decisions, and are by and large focused on social interaction, not practical finance.
Given there is rarely a "one-size fits all" approach to college financing, that opens up the asymmetric knowledge bias component. Assuming that the parents have experience or make good choices for themselves and therefore they will help make informed decisions isn't a given outcome.
Large difference between a family that creates a 529 or other savings methodology and one without the financial means. (How many parents don't inform their kid there's no money until Senior year?)
Starting Freshman year, schools should be offering tools to help educate the students so that they can ask better questions regarding WHICH college is affordable for them or their family. (Offering the same to parents would also be useful.)
Only 36% of parents pay for all, the remaining expect their child to contribute...
You make valid points. I would caution against not investing in literacy because it doesn’t solve all the issues. We need to invest in both solving systemic issues and improving literacy.
Economics paired with Geography is an excellent choice for understanding a changing world and GIS adds another dimension to the economists toolkit.
Abdullah- I agree with you about all you say; however, please include a course or two in social psychology. It is closely intertwined with economics, and every economist should have this background.
Totally agree. Can we also force all politicians to take Econ?
Some of them have econ degrees, but they learned the wrong things!
I think they are choosing to suppress what they learned for personal gain
Understanding that every decision has trade-offa is fundamental to thinking about the world. The evidence that financial literacy matters to better economic outcomes is not perfectly clear. Most people would benefit from somebody they trust who has incentives aligned with their financial life.
Thanks for clarifying. Literacy doesn’t solve systemic issues. One can be the best and optimize decisions, but if they don’t have the chance to do so or don’t have access then it won’t lead to better outcomes. I appreciate your input.
Luckily, Econ Ed Month is right around the corner!