Graduation Speech College Graduates - 1663 Words

In the United States, the outlook for recent college graduates seems bleak. In 2014, graduates left college with both a degree and an average of $28,950 in student loan debt (â€Å"Survey of the States† 1). In addition, over half of all millennials are having trouble saving for the future and seventy five percent were unaware of late payment charges on their credit cards (ibid). All of this builds up into the current situation in the United States, where collectively, college graduates have over one trillion dollars in debt, the second largest debt category (ibid). Now, the spending and saving of money starts at an earlier age than ever before. Students fresh out of high school are being asked to make thousand dollar investments in the†¦show more content†¦As so many young people are in desperate need of personal finance lessons, putting this content within the required high school curriculum would give them all a background they can use when making financial decision s, both right after high school and throughout the rest of their lives. Right now, only a few states have this personal finance curriculum implemented into the required content of their high schools and even fewer have testing to make sure these areas are being taught well (â€Å"Survey of the States† 1). They have had beneficial results, although these few locations cannot do enough to educate an entire generation about personal finance before the student loan debt rises even higher and thousands of young adults are unknowingly finding themselves in financial issues. Personal finance education is working in some high school systems, however, there are still improvements that need to be made before every high school student is offered the same opportunity to learn the financial skills that will help them in their future. These improvements include efforts to increase student motivation, educate teachers on how best to teach personal finance, and change the curriculum so that it is more beneficial to these young people. So far, personal finance classes have been working throughout the United States. One example of this was found in a study conducted by William B. Walstad, Ken Rebeck, and Richard A. MacDonald from the