The space race changed how Americans learn about money

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A longer version of this video is on our channel - it dives deeper into how financial literacy has evolved from the middle of the 20th century up until today..
It’s a common refrain: school is full of useless (if interesting!) lessons… but we learn next to nothing about how to manage our finances.
It’s true that many Americans still lack basic financial knowledge, which is a contributing factor to the money challenges - high levels of debt, insufficient savings, and poor investment decisions - that a lot of us face. But it’s not necessarily true that we never learned anything: many of us sat through a few classes on money management. It just may not have been enough to stick.
In this video, we’ll take a brief look at the state of financial education in the US: past, present, and future.
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[@FunderDuck]

Not every children will grow up to become a scientist, but they will all become adults.

[@mrunlucky4627]

Exactly

[@technolus5742]

True. At least there was some thought and good intention put into it. I would of imagined the reasons were more foolish.

[@plumage.mp4]

maths and basic sciences should still be mandatory alongside english, basic administrative and finance literacy. They need to cut on theology studies, fund decently schools, mostly teachers hours and not ipads, and be harsher on kids.

[@FunderDuck]

@@plumage.mp4 completely agreed. Teaching those types of fundamentals help students, parents, and teachers identify if a student has interest or aptitude in STEM fields or specializing in some studies. Beyond those basics, the large majority of students likely won’t require education in trigonometry, biochemistry, or anthropology (as examples). However they’ll almost all end up paying taxes, have to manage their daily lives, and operate within civil society. So, I’d consider something like financial literacy as important as anything taught in standard curriculums.

[@plumage.mp4]

@@FunderDuck the US tax bureaucracy needs to be simplified, it's more complicated than in France and only feeds businesses to do it for those who can afford it. The rest is mostly due to the lack of regulation of predatory consumer practice regarding advertising and credits. A 10 hour financial literacy course is enough for most stuff, if you digitalize and autofill the US fiscal system. In this regards, the US is still stuck in the 20th century.

[@RamenNoodle1985]

Yeah, it's a short sponsored by t-mobile, but it's a pretty important point - teaching kids about finances, loans (especially loans for college), how mortgages work, is really important.

[@snakesandsticks]

Make sure you can budget for that new iPhone in your contract renewal

[@RamenNoodle1985]

@@snakesandsticks nah, I have an unlocked Samsung that's on the mint network - $15/month. Now Comcast otoh, them I want to ditch, but it's hard in an apartment building.

[@technolus5742]

​@@snakesandsticksor make sure you see through those tactics. It's good when a sponsor has little to do with the subject of the video.

[@eatfood9647]

people always say we don’t need science and math but need finance classes. like we need both

[@CrackerPsy]

It’s not that we do t need STEM classes. The issue is about the balance of knowledge and what folks get out of their education. Everyone needs a strong foundation of knowledge to merely survive (finance), then they can build on that (STEM) to thrive. Three rules of life (that everyone should break): 1- if it makes sense, don’t do it 2- panic first 3- there is no balance

[@nathanlowe655]

In my personal opinion, math is super important as long as you use it in your everyday life, like you use addition, subtraction, multiplication and division everyday and thus they’re absolutely necessary in the same way learning about money and budgeting is necessary, but I think it could be argued that not every part of math is used day to day and therefore it’s less important to people (think algebra, calculus)

[@TonieJade]

Why does it have to be either or? Why can't we do a good job at teaching kids both? All children will need to know financial literacy AND they also should have a foundation in science to make sound health decisions as adults. I'm a doctor, and people's lack of understanding of how thier bodies and how research works explains a lof of what we're seeing with the rise of measles and roll back of abortion rights. This country is doing a terrible job at teaching math and science already, let alone financial literacy.

[@nathanlowe655]

As a 19 year old that graduated last year, we don’t learn anything about our bodies from science. If you don’t learn it in health you won’t learn it at all, in science it’s all bout chemistry once you get to high school, biology is seen like an election or for the advanced kids that have already finished chemistry in my area. I mean how often do you even use chemistry in your day to day life compared to how your body works 🤦‍♀️ it’s very frustrating

[@erinnereynolds]

The only finance lessons I had were when my AP Biology teacher would give us mini life lessons in class when we had extra time. Literally everything from how Roth IRAs work to divorce proceedings. It was still an AP Bio class, though, and most of my classmates had nothing like that.

[@dylannnnng]

That’s great did you get through the whole biology curriculum???

[@erinnereynolds]

We did. We even had extra time at the end of the year for me to teach my classmates how to play poker@@dylannnnng

[@tonestop]

I can tell you the Idaho Financial Class I had to take was about stock market shares between nations. We never got to the tax part of the class.

[@Sk8rToon]

Why not both?

[@ZaavanMusic]

Y’all are hilarious even if you were taught money management or taxes it not like you’re listening to it while in high school of all times.

[@girabbit]

It’s good and all but the idea that you should only learn things that are directly useful on a daily basis can also go too far.

[@G8tr1522]

the only reason to learn math is to learn logical reasoning, but instead it's used to turn children into human calculators, as if it was useful for them to multiply numbers together quickly. Ie, math should teach _why,_ not _how._

[@oceantransistor]

Seeking knowledge made me a comrade. ✊🏽

[@technerd880]

Kansas just passed a bill to require a class like that in high schools.

[@TheJensPeeters]

That's always the case, right. You have a decision people marvel about and someone tries to project some set of values on it, that is not actually the reason why that decision was made (I'm looking at you religious food doctrines) .. or international narcotics classifications or you name it. There so many of these examples

[@CyrusYareff]

I grew up in Ohio, graduated in 2003 and I don't remember any finance class in school.

[@Missy-Missy1111]

Remove the EOGs from the public school curriculum.

[@EvanMoon]

Teachers have to teach all of these single things to make sure you do good on standardize testing. Thus you don’t learn things that are useful in your life

[@thewb8329]

The high school dropout rate in 1958 was 50%. Doubtful that this action mentioned in the video had any effect on people’s financial decisions. More likely the evolution of marketing, credit, and consumerism is the most likely culprits that spurred impulse buying and not living within one means.

[@nikolaievans2432]

To the states that keep money management to graduate good for you keep it

[@jeremyh.6704]

You missed WA state, they've passed a bill requiring financial education in high school.

[@wailinburnin]

Capitalism über alles! “Tia a poor man that counts his cattle” - Ovid. “Capitalism makes pigs of us all.” - MWBB

[@tonydelamancha5513]

real talk how many kids would pay attention and remember that class after they graduate? would it be better to have a free online class as an adult for when you need it?

[@mangographics225]

The interagation of Fauci in Congress proves even some Congressman don't understand simple science.

[@TheDizzieC]

Colorado is always behind on education and other public works that aren't short term investments. Thanks TABOR!

[@krishp1104]

Why are you talking like personal finance and STEM is mutually exclusive? You can think math and science is important while teaching finance

[@universpro7741]

And many people were against it

[@griffredarmy]

People should have learned enough math and reading abilities from school to teach themselves how to manage their finances. Read a book, do a community college or online class on the topic. If you didn’t learn the ability from school to teach yourself finances then you weren’t paying attention. A finance class would have been of no use.

[@macristo33]

I grew up very liberal (big government, let the government decide everything, regulation, etc.). When I took economics in the 10th grade, I completely changed as I learned that resources are not infinite (i.e., printing money causes inflation). I then took accounting one year later and I became very conservative. Today, I am a CPA and I credit my conservative background to my success. Teaching kids financial literacy is very important.

[@redribbonzx7207]

Adulthood and Marriage! That something need to be brought back to the education system.

[@SweetEssie]

If I had a choice, I would rather personal finance over how to keep a spouse and raise babies.

[@Dasrecord]

bitcoin fixes this

[@jmexgarcia4539]

No child left behind is awful.

[@de_g0od]

Last!

[@njpofficial]

19:56

[@cm.design]

Another short that should be marked as sponsored but isn't. (At least this one isn't an AI puff piece for Microsoft.)

[@TheVillageIdiot829]

Yeah, but the personal finance class still doesn't teach us how to balance a checkbook...at least at soddy daisy high

[@RamenNoodle1985]

Does anyone really use a checkbook anymore? My bank has an app that balances everytime I make a purchase or pay a bill. I haven't had to write a check since the covid dark times, and property manager of my apartment building finally caught up to the 21st century and let me pay my rent online. Still can't belive it took them that long

[@SweetEssie]

​@@RamenNoodle1985Balance a budget is still needed

[@RamenNoodle1985]

@@SweetEssie yup, absolutely

[@exentrikk]

Don't teach children about personal finance, it's good for the economy (probably) - Eisenhower

[@MyysticYT]

Wow, I am third. This is really fascinating

[@nickfromm5315]

WE NEED TO TEACH CHILDS TO BECOME FARMERS!! WE NEED MORE FARMERS

[@NewCreationInChrist896]

Romans 10:9💕👑

[@makeracistsafraidagain]

Of course personal finance should be taught early in schools!