Lessons in Financial Literacy for Teens

Here’s a good list of five concepts that teens should know by the time they graduate from high school. Unfortunately, in most states you aren’t going to learn anything like this in school. Most teachers aren’t even qualified to teach the topics. That’s why financial illiteracy is so widespread and people have such a hard time achieving financial independence.

In 2012, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development studied nearly 30,000 teenagers from 18 countries and found that more than 1 in 6 US students failed to reach the base level of proficiency in financial literacy. The data showed that our students fell in the middle of the global pack, performing on average behind Latvia and just ahead of Russia. At the end of the day, it’s up to us, the parents, to check in on our children’s financial literacy and help prepare them for their futures so that they have the best chance of success.