Personal finance really should be taught at high school

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. While you are right that personal finance

ought to be taught in high schools, it would be better to concentrate on things like credit cards, borrowing to attend college, debt in general, how mortgages work, how Social Security works and the implications of collecting at various ages, and so on. Maybe the difference between long term and short term capital gains, and how 401k plans and IRAs work. Even those will not be of much interest to most people so young.

The example you gave is a pretty sophisticated one which, even if covered in high school, isn't going to be remembered 50 years later. Plus, the tax rules and laws change often enough, that such a specific question probably wouldn't be that good to go over with a current high schooler.

The main thing they need to have impressed upon them is that they need to pay attention to money, to their own spending. If I were teaching the course I'd do my best to steer them away from using a debit card for all day-to-day expenses. Pay cash.