Skynesher/Getty Images
There’s a good chance you didn’t learn much or anything about personal finance in school. This may explain why many Americans are bad at managing money.
Find out: 10 genius things Warren Buffett says about spending money
Read next: 9 things you must do to grow your wealth in 2024
According to a FICO survey, three in five Americans (60%) think personal finance is one of the most valuable subjects taught in high school. In fact, the only subjects that respondents said would be more useful in adulthood were math (66%) and English (65%).
Despite this, most people don’t actually learn important financial skills in school. Only 46% of Americans say they were taught personal finance skills in high school classrooms.
According to FICO, more than 1 in 4 Gen Z adults believe they are not financially literate, significantly higher than Millennials, Gen The effects of the lack seem to be felt across the board. Even worse, a quarter of Gen Z adults believe they missed their financial goals in the past year because they didn’t have the right personal finance skills.
Overall, 90% of Gen Z adults believe they would be better off financially if they had more access to financial resources and education. They’re not alone in this sentiment, as 74% of Americans feel the same way.
Trending: Want to retire rich? Suze Orman says she’s missing this key money movement
Change may be on the horizon
While personal finance education may not have been a priority in the past, that may change for many schools in the near future.
More than half (28 states) now require students to take an economics course to graduate from high school, according to the Council on Economic Education’s 2024 State Survey. This includes three states added in the past two years.
Even more promising, 35 states now require students to take a personal finance course to graduate from high school. Starting in 2022, 12 states have been added to this list.
In fact, California, Alaska, and Washington, DC are the only states where personal finance is not included in state or territory standards.
Learn more: Mark Cuban: 9 Rules for Getting Rich
Americans in debt
Improving financial literacy can help Americans make better use of their money. Providing people with the tools to make smart financial decisions early in life may help them avoid taking on more debt than they can handle.
As of the third quarter of 2023, U.S. consumers owed $17.1 trillion, according to Experian. The bulk of this, $11 trillion, is secured by assets, but notably, credit card debt achieved a 17.4% increase in balances in 2023.
story continues
According to Experian, Gen Xers currently have the most debt of any generation, averaging $157,556 per person by 2023. Millennials come next ($125,047 per person on average), followed by Baby Boomers ($94,880 per person), and then Gen Z ($29,820 per person).
According to Experian, as of 2023, Gen Xers will have the most average credit card debt totaling $9,123 per person. At a slightly different pace, baby boomers come next ($6,642 per person on average), followed by Millennials ($6,521 per person on average), and then Gen Z with an average of $3,262 per person.
If emphasis continues to be placed on providing financial education in schools and it is effective, future generations may become more in sync with each other. If learning to manage money properly becomes the norm, having large amounts of debt may become more of an outlier than the norm.
Details of GOBankingRates
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 60% of Americans think personal finance should be taught in schools — here’s how this could benefit you
