Author: Rod Griffin / Source: Wise Bread
I’m a native Kansan. I’m a proud Jayhawks fan. My roots are deep there, and much of my family still lives there. I’m going back home next month to celebrate my grandson becoming an Eagle Scout (the same one who got lost on his way to class the first day of college last fall).
I say all this because I want to brag about something innovative that my home state has done for its students — and to use the example as a guide for what we all need to do to encourage the same action for financial education.
Recently, spurred to action by a teenager who suffered cardiac arrest during a spelling bee, the Kansas Legislature passed a law requiring every high school student in the state to complete a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) course to graduate from high school.
The American Heart Association reports that 350,000 people across the United States suffer cardiac arrest outside of a hospital each year. Only 46 percent of those victims receive CPR. Now, every high school graduate in Kansas will know how to perform CPR. That will unquestionably save lives over time.
Emma Baker was the 13-year-old student who collapsed during a spelling bee. Her life was saved because a school administrator knew CPR and a person in the audience recognized her medical distress.
That event drove a passion for her and her family to press for legislation to ensure that others in the future have someone there to perform CPR in the rare event that it’s needed.
We need to follow that example for financial education for our students across the country.
Every single student in our schools will:
- Spend cash.
- Take out installment loans for major purchases.
- Swipe credit cards, or just point their phones at a reader to make a charge.
- Need to purchase insurance.
- Save for emergencies.
- And, we hope, invest for their retirement.
Add to that the fact that there was more than $1.4 trillion in student loan debt in 2017 and more than $1 trillion in credit card debt in the United States, and it should be abundantly clear that understanding fundamental personal finance topics including credit, savings, and other basic financial concepts is a critical life skill every student needs.
Everywhere I go, everyone I talk to wants to know why we don’t include financial education in our schools’ curricula. The answer is simple. We don’t make it clear to our school boards, administrators, and legislators that it’s a…
The post Want Financial Education in Schools? Follow the Example of One Kansas Teen appeared first on FeedBox.