Financial Literacy, Should it be

Mandatory?
 Team Member Roles

Bianka: Made outline of the project and implemented research as well as fixed formating of
presentation.

Iris: Conducted the survey and gathered the results and edited the presentation.

Trevor: Researched multiple databases for articles/information and summarized them.

Lorenzo: Obtained factual information regarding financial literacy and current importance with
our educational system.

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 What is Financial Literacy?

Financial literacy is defined as the ability to properly manage money through planning and
understanding.

Currently there is much debate if financial literacy classes should be mandatory for high school
juniors/seniors.

Junior Achievement is one program that supports mandatory financial literacy and is taught in
210,000 classrooms. This program is made up of three sections that tackle topics such as how to
gain various sources of income, taxes, and how to plan for the future. (Haverty, 2020)

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 Pros Cons

▪ Understanding financial literacy helps ▪ Financial education increases

people become aware with their money confidence, but it may cause financially
and achieve financial stability. bad decisions.

▪ Teaches people on how to conserve and ▪ People are either self taught or taught
wisely use money. by other adults.

▪ Financial literacy ignores the main

problem of not understanding the
behavioral side of money

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 Methodology

1. Plan
In order to get information across to each other effectively we made a solid plan in class and
then communicated through instagram
2. Research/Construct
We used the internet, NMSU/DACC databases on our topic and organized the information
into the presentation
3. Test
When looking for opinions, we used a survey on instagram and a survey through canvas to
gain the opinion of our peers.
4. Finalize
Ensured all criteria was met, added any additional information not included, and edited
formating

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Financial literacy should
not be a mandatory class

The composition of the classes is flawed due to the

inconsideration of surrounding problems
 The Problem with Financial Literacy

What is wrong with mandatory financial literacy, is not the concept, but how the
classes are executed.

The major flaws of these classes that make it almost pointless is...
▪ These classes focus solely on the logical side, such as the math and terminology of money
handling. However, the emotional side plays a huge role that is completely ignored.

▪ To have an understanding of financial literacy, there needs to be a grasp of basic core

principles

▪ Actual lessons students want to be and should be taught is missing from these classes

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 The Problem with Financial Literacy Cont.

There is a whole branch of economics called behavioral finance that is dedicated to

understanding why it is so hard for individuals to save money (Roth, 2020).

Economic decisions are made based on emotion and not logic

America is extremely far behind in education not even placing top 5 in most subjects struggling to
compete globally.
“In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education found that only 25 percent of 12th-graders were either
proficient or advanced in math.” (Ashe, 2017)

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After this study there was another report concluding that financial literacy had no significant impact
personally on the UK students (Gemmel, 2019)

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 “
“A class, even one mandated by the state, with
standards and everything, does not fix
minimum wage jobs that beget other minimum
wage jobs, losing the battle against inflation or
the behavioral patterns of spenders that are
bombarded with advertising to buy, buy, buy,
no payments for 90 days and so
on.”(Lohor,2018)
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 The survey was conducted on
instagram. Where viewers would be
able to partake in the poll.

Majority said Yes for mandatory

financial classes however, we would
need more participants for better
results

The other survey we sent out on canvas

11 had no participants
Yes No

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 Further Research

Many individuals state that mandatory financial literacy classes will have a positive impact yet no
valid evidence has been shown to prove that statement.

Articles and journals that persist these classes should be enforced, support their argument with
biased data;
“Many studies use data-collection techniques biased toward finding this education to be effective.
But people overestimate how much they have learned and how much their future behavior will
change. “ (Willis, 2008)

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 Future Suggestions

Iris: I would gather more information on different age groups and see where a financial literacy
class helped and where it did not.

Lorenzo: For the future i would personally like to take a financial literacy class myself because
there is plenty that I don’t know on the topic.

Bianka: Time will only tell if mandatory financial literacy classes will be beneficial, therefore more
research must be conducted.

Trevor: I would gather all the information collected in the study to submit to the head of
administration. If revising is needed for the study I would update it.

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 Final Statement

Lorenzo: I believe financial literacy is a very important trait to both have and learn, but should
not be a mandatory course in schools due to more important matters needing to be touched on
that the U.S is already falling behind on.

Bianka: Before we can benefit from non-mandatory financial literacy classes there needs to be a
reconstruction of classes’ curriculum to fix the flaws stated before.

Iris: I think that a financial literacy class should be offered once you are in high school or college,
but it shouldn’t be mandatory but rather more be considered an optional class.

Trevor: I believe financial literacy should be mandatory because it provides the guidance and
information to help college students for the rest of their lives.

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 References
Zucchi, K. (2020, January 29). Why Financial Literacy Is so Important. Retrieved from
Woodward, V. (2019, December 18). Should You Be Required To Take A
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/why-financial-literacy-and-ed
Financial Literacy Course? Retrieved from
ucation-so-important.asp
https://www.good.is/money/financial-literacy-required-college-course

Gill, A, Bhattacharya,. (2019). The effects of a financial literacy intervention on the

Willis, L. E. (2008, November). Against financial-literacy education. Iowa Law
financial and economic knowledge of high school students. Retrieved from
Review, 94(1), 197+. Retrieved from
https://libezp.nmsu.edu:2272/doi/abs/10.1080/00220485.2019.1618761
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A192435669/AONE?u=nm_p_elportal&sid=AON
E&xid=e0ac213d

Lohr, J. (2018, October 3). Do Not Teach A Course In Financial Literacy In High School.
Retrieved from
https://www.birdvilleschools.net/cms/lib/TX01000797/Centricity/Domain/1097/1
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4209662-not-teach-course-in-financial-literacy-in-hig
2th%20financial-literacy-procon-31571-article_only.pdf
h-school

Roth, J. D. (2020, February 23). Why financial literacy fails (and what to do
The History of Financial Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved from
about it). Retrieved from
https://www.opploans.com/oppu/articles/history-of-financial-literacy/
https://www.getrichslowly.org/why-financial-literacy-fails-and-what-to-do-ab
out-it/

Gemmell, K. (2019, November 19). Financial education fails to add up for young people.
Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/c4febc28-09f8-11ea-bb52-34c8d9dc6d84

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