Financial literacy is on a frightening decline in America, especially mong younger generations who aren't being taught the same things their parents were.
In an effort to change this, one state is making financial literacy courses mandatory for high school students following a test run at select schools, hopefully making a stark difference in the financial habits these students will carry into their futures.
In fact, it's not just them. Adult financial literacy in America is extremely low all around, leading to high amounts of stress surrounding money.
In FINRA's National Financial Campaign Study from 2018, they found that 53% of American adults are financially anxious and hesitate to speak about finances. This seemingly affected the younger generation, as this study also had four in five young people failing a financial literacy quiz.
Fingers have been pointed in every direction when it comes to whose fault this drop in understanding regarding finances is, but that has led nowhere.
Instead, some schools took matters into their own hands, including one high school in Rhode Island.
Their personal finance classes covered everything they believed students needed to know to be financially responsible adults.
Student Hanatha Konte, the class of '21 salutatorian, said in an interview with The Breeze, "The classes really broke everything down for me in a way I understood."
Following the success of the first run of these classes, Rhode Island introduced a bill that requires all high school students to take a financial literacy course. Gov. Dan McKee signed the bill into law at Tolman High School on June 9.
It's good to see institutions making sure kids are learning these extremely important functions sooner rather than later, especially since it's knowledge they can bring with them on their post-secondary journey regardless of the path they take, and build on to become even stronger!
h/t: The Morning News
