3 Insights from an Interview with Peter: Financial Education Expert
Recently, I conducted an interview with Peter who works as a senior research assistant as part of the Federal Reserve’s Fed Ed program, a program which brings financial experts to high schools to share their knowledge with the students. Throughout the interview we covered 3 main topics.
- The Impact of Economics On Your life
“What drew me to economics most is the impact that knowledge, good knowledge, about how to manage finances and money can have on your life. If a family knows how to maintain a responsible amount of debt, to take out debt in a way that increases their wealth, that doesn’t put them in a financially vulnerable position, that’s so valuable.”
“ Even though young people realize personal finance is important, they underestimate just how much the right and wrong choices can change the course of their lives.”
2. How the Fed Ed Makes a Difference
There’s a huge wealth of knowledge at the Federal Reserve, and they’re on track to personally meet and interact with 1500 students this year.
“The most clear indication for us of our effectiveness is the fact that once we form a relationship with a teacher, or program, once we engage them once, we almost always have them back the next year.”
Here’s what Peter said about students who visited DC over spring break and got to have a sit down conversation with their Senators.
“When other people asked the students what they thought was their favorite part of the their trip to DC, for this week long incredibly involved trip to DC, people actually responded that their [favorite part was the] trip was to the board where they sat down and had lunch with FedEd volunteers”
3. Speeding from High School to Adulthood — That’s Whiplash
Peter’s insights go beyond his work at the Fed Ed, we talked about why the US is ranked only 7th in teenager financial literacy, and 14th for adult financial literacy (CBS on youth financial literacy, Investopedia on adult financial literacy).
“Someone finishing high school can easily borrow more money in their first year of college then they have spent in their entire life up to that point. They might not have a bank account, and now they’re being assailed with credit cards offers, student loan issues, rent payments. Then in a few more years, they’re graduating and it’s probably time to start saving for retirement. That’s whiplash.”
“You’re not going to buy more than a few cars in your lifetime. 5, 6 probably not double digit cars. You’re gonna buy 1 maybe 2 houses in your lifetime. You’re going to college once maybe grad school, you’re only going to retire once.
Because there are so few of these decisions, people don’t have that opportunity to do trial and error to sort of learn by experience that much, it’s very difficult to get all the right lessons out of one fiasco of a car buying experience.”
Honestly, there’s too much gold in the interview for a summary to do it justice. I encourage everyone to go through the full transcript and to share your thoughts as a response
Link to transcript here.
