Should a Personal Finance Course Be Required?

by Marc Imbillicieri

Many schools are beginning to require students to take financial literacy courses. Although Hudson High School does not require it, we do offer Personal Finance as an elective, which 52 students have taken this year. Based on additional student requests for the course, the school will probably add sections next year.

State Bills such as 410 by Rep. Danielle W. Gregoire (D-Marlborough), 367 by Rep. Vinny DeMacedo (R-1st Plymouth) and 519 by Rep. Martha Walz (D-8th Suffolk) push for financial literacy in Massachusetts schools.

Massachusetts was given an “F” in financial literacy by the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College in Burlington, since the state does not require finance classes. The state also received this rating because twenty bills demanding finance education have been introduced in the legislature, but none were successful.

Many students agree with this push for financial literacy courses; they believe it should be a required course.

Sophomore Mark Mitchell is among them. “I think a lot of people want to make it big in the world but don’t know a lot about business because it wasn’t taught in schools. I think not having this class causes a lot of kids to make bad financial decisions.”

Many students don’t want another class in the core curriculum, but they wish business math could be considered a core math class. “I think that the schedule is too crowded for this to be its own class, but it would make sense to replace the math classes with it,” sophomore Drew Bowler said.

Fellow sophomores John Craig III and DJ Panneton agreed. “(Financial literacy classes) would prepare us better,” said Panneton. Most students maintain that it would be helpful to learn math they would use as adults.

However, business teacher and Business Professionals of America Advisor Kristopher Langan said that business classes should be its own course, not part of the math curriculum. “There’s a lot of things about business: resume building, job searching, that don’t really have to do with math.” He states that given the large amount of work unrelated to math, it wouldn’t make sense to make it part of that curriculum.

“Personal Finance is a lot about job searching,” computer teacher Christine Williamson said, “but a Financial Literacy course would mainly focus on balancing checkbooks, taxes, which would probably fall under the math curriculum.” Williamson further explained, “I’m not sure if it should be required, but I would recommend every student take it. Things like taxes, checkbooks, saving money, are all very important.”

“I’m not sure if we would be able to fit it in the current schedule,” Principal Brian Reagan said. “If we did, it would probably be a semester course for seniors.” He further added, “I think that it would be a great idea to teach things like balancing checkbooks, staying in the black and not in the red, that sort of thing.”

Reagan said that it is especially important for teens to learn this, as this is the age when they are beginning to make money. “I think a lot of teens make bad financial decisions, and a class like this would help. It’s also because when they go to college, the second they get on campus credit card companies are going to swarm at them, and a lot of them don’t think about what that could do down the line.”