Archive for February 27th, 2008

Georgia High Schools Add More Personal Finance Lessons

Personal finance lessons…high school.  Wow, you don’t often see those two phrases together in the same sentence.  Times are certainly changing; in a recent article published WSB-TV Atlanta website, Georgia’s high school economics instruction has been rewritten to include personal finance lessons.  From the Action News 2 article:

“As a society, we need to do everything we can to increase financial literacy. The need to understand the range of products, mortgage and credit cards is so pressing.”

Kudos to the superintendent of schools in Georgia, Kathy Cox, for making this important change to the high school curriculum.  When students go to college they are often bombarded with credit card offers.  From banks next door to dormitories to credit card company tables on campus, credit card offers are abundant.  I remember my first credit card, a Bank One Visa student card with a limit of $500 of which I promptly took out a $400 cash advance so three of my friends and myself could fly to California for a football game.  Due to extenuating circumstances I didn’t get to go on the trip and amazingly none of my friends paid me back. 

I wasn’t a stupid person.  I was 18 and attending college on a full-ride academic scholarship.  What I didn’t have was street-smarts, those came later and after many, many mistakes.  I think that offering personal finance lessons in high school, combined with parental instruction, will set these students up for a more successful life.  Now I don’t think credit cards are the devil, I think they have a purpose and must be used wisely.  However, very few 18 year-olds are prepared for the cause and effect that credit cards come with.