The Crisis of Financial Education
This is a writing sample from Scripted writer Natalie Vice
Personal accountability and education as it relates to personal financial oversight remains one of the greatest challenges we face as we embrace the digital frontier of the 21st century. Internet security, password protection, cyber-attacks, and theft of personal information continue to plague the consuming public. One of the greatest protections we can afford our online personal data begins with taking responsibility for the availability of the information and monitoring perhaps the greatest asset future generations will possess: a credit file.
At birth, each and every citizen of the United States is assigned a social security number; and from that point forward the protectionism and personal liability for that identifier begins. As a young adult, you begin to realize the magnitude of the "credit file". As for your education about, importance of, and future opportunity that is a result of an excellent credit file, the knowledge remains a mystery.
As a society, we will look back on this lapse in instruction as a great disservice to the educational curriculum of our youth. The need for a comprehensive curriculum focused on the importance of financial responsibility (i.e. credit monitoring, critical thinking skills that enhance financial responsibility, budgeting, and the differentiation between "wants versus needs") has reached critical mass.
No longer should we accept the staid and outdated text-book examples of finance that result in an immediate glazing of the eyes and shutdown of comprehension. Surely, if we spend millions focused on content creation and marketing strategies, we can find an engaging solution for financial education.
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