Florida’s Financial Literacy Course has students across the state learning about how to do their taxes, budgeting, loans, and investments. This may look inherently positive on paper, however, the course finds itself falling short of its ultimate goal: educating young people about financing effectively.
One of the largest issues surrounding this course is the fact that it attempts to teach students over a dozen important financial topics over a course that is created to be a semester long. This, in turn, leads to students rushing through material and being unable to fully understand it within the course’s length.
Along with that, students around Florida find themselves struggling to make time outside of school for the class. Since the course is online and not included within the everyday class schedule, students have to attempt to do the coursework on top of their extracurricular activities, homework, and studying for exams. “It takes a lot of time outside of school that I don’t always have,” said sophomore Leah Delgado.
As the Financial Literacy Course is a graduation requirement for Florida students, having to complete it on top of extracurriculars, homework, and exams makes it seem more like a chore to students than something that will benefit them in the long run. “I wouldn’t have been able to go to my senior homecoming without finishing the class first,” said senior Zoe Gobbi. “It was like a race to finish it in time, and then I ended up just taking an econ course my senior year anyways because our school requires it.” With our school withholding important activities like senior homecoming, Grad Bash, and prom if the course is not yet completed, many students would rather complete the course as quickly as possible to check it off their list of graduation requirements.
Florida’s Financial Literacy Course holds good intentions, aiming to ensure that students understand financing before graduating high school and beginning their lives outside of their school’s four walls. However, it fails to educate students of these important skills in a way that will allow them to effectively retain this knowledge without forgetting it immediately after. Having an adequate understanding of financing is crucial to being successful as an adult, so having this course be ineffective may be more harmful to students than beneficial.
