Financial Education Center Statistics Illustrate Need for Practical Money Lessons
Becoming a successful financial educator requires certain personal traits, perhaps the most important of which is empathy. The majority of U.S. families today desperately need practical lessons in personal finance. Some current statistics help to illustrate the problem. For example, according to research conducted by a financial education center, 62% of college graduates will leave school with a student loan debt higher than $27,000. And nearly 60% of those college students will be forced to move back home with their parents post-graduation.
Individuals who have the empathy to teach financial education effectively will recognize that these statistics are more than just numbers on paper. Those numbers represent real people—people who are suffering from money problems and struggling with the life stresses those problems create. It’s important for a good educator to put him or herself in these people’s shoes, and imagine the future they face if they fail to learn important money management skills.
Most of us learned our money lessons from the school of hard knocks. But now there’s an institute of financial education known as the National Financial Educators Council. This organization takes a holistic approach to teaching practical money skills using experiential teaching methods and hands-on learning. And because the NFEC is a social enterprise, their workshops and online resource centers are available at no cost.
One of the initiatives currently being promoted by the NFEC is public policy that would require mandatory financial education for all college students before they are allowed to take out a student loan. Should this requirement become law, it might help young adults avoid the huge debt burdens so many college graduates now face.
Financial educators truly can make a difference in people’s real-life situations, and the NFEC has a certification program that prepares such educators to teach money lessons effectively. Financial education for kids has never been more dearly needed than it is today.