Minnesota Senate pushing for personal finance training for college freshman
State Senator Steve Dill (R-Dassel) has brought a bill requiring college freshman to receive a crash course in personal finance during freshman orientation. According to the Star-Tribune article, “Dille said that his plan goes hand in hand with another higher-education proposal that would clamp down on the marketing of credit cards at colleges and universities.”
Sounds like a pair of winning proposals to me. Everyone can use some extra help understanding how to manage and–where possible–avoid debt.
It seems simple enough at the get go, but something about credit cards (something carefully crafted by credit card companies) makes it easy for students to get into debt, and hard for them to get out.
4 Comments on “Minnesota Senate pushing for personal finance training for college freshman”
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Great Idea. This stuff really ought to be taught at the high-school level as well. Add to it a practical course in personal accounting, and credit education, and we are onto something that will both pay big dividends downstream and will be more valuable for the average joe than higher level math.
Maybe add an additional class on other finance and personal business management items: leases and renting, home ownership benefits and costs, real wealth accumulation vs collections of rapidly depreceating objects, purchase negotiations (cars and homes), employment shopping and wage negotiations.
Even with all these courses people will probably make stupid mistakes but at least once they recognize the mistake they’ll understand what the mistake was, instead of spending their 20s figuring it all out.
Interestingly, I just heard on Marketplace this morning that Illinois has instituted a program where first-time homebuyers getting nontraditional mortgages will be required to take a basic seminar on borrowing. Apparently they were doing this on a more limited basis until recently, and found that 9% of attendees’ loans showed fraudulent charges or activity, and nearly 50% (I’m not quite so sure of that number) could not afford the home they intended to buy.
Pretty amazing numbers, and good on Illinois for taking some productive action on the problem.
Having come from parents who did not own their own home until retirement, I would really have appreciated a course on the very topics Kornkob suggested. However, providing that course in freshman orientation probably would not be as effective as sometime later in the freshman year. Orientation is overwhelming for many young people, and adding finance to the mix could be a wash-out! My thought would be to provide a personal finance course in their senior year of high school. I especially think the topic of real wealth vs. toy collection could be invaluable!