Students need courses about money matters

Proposing that a course in personal finance be a core requirement seems alarming and a hindrance.

Most students would balk at having a finance course be required. Not another requirement piled on top of all of the other courses students need to take!

But think about how much information could be obtained by learning how to handle money and what sources of information a student uses.

Personal finances are something students deal with on a daily basis. A majority of those students are either working in order to support themselves or augment the amount of money they receive from parents or financial aid.

But most students have no notion how to handle their own money outside of a basic idea about how to open a savings or checking account.

When it involves planning for the future, students are not thinking of how much money they will have when they retire or what kind of resources they can rely on to buy a home, go on a vacation, buy a car or basic living expenses.

These are things that students need on which to live but thinking about a budget is something that seems only necessary when one graduates or becomes an "adult."

But if you do not know how to function now, whom do you learn from and how do you operate finances with such minimal requirements?

For example, many people utilize credit cards to pay for expenses accrued during their years in college.

With interest rates on credit cards averaging 18-21 percent annually, it outweighs the average savings account, which earns approximately 3 percent.

A person ends up paying $1,000 in credit card interest alone. Though most students do not have $5,000 in savings, such an amount only earns $150 in interest a year. In addition, there are taxes to be paid on it. Thus, a person ends up earning only $120 in interest in a year.

That means these students spend $880 trying to pay a credit card bill. And they wonder why they never have any money even though they have a job and there is money in the account.

These and other helpful tips could be learned in such a finance class. By learning the proper ways to establish credit, save money and invest, students could have a sizable sum to depend on once they have graduated from college.

Students are constantly questioning the practicality of the courses they are required to take.

In the real world, knowing how to fix a mixed metaphor or figuring out what 2x+3y=23z is not something a people will always have to rely on. But knowing how to handle money so that in future years things will be stable, will always be a skill they need to know.