Milleneals and Money

Why are we not surprised Millennials are ignorant of personal economics and it is now a great concern of adolescent psychologists and professional educators that 61 percent of them are "anxious" about their fiscal reality and 27 percent are having panic attacks on the issue and seeking professional help.  

It now appears basic realities of life are "cutting edge issues" for the generation of children of "helicopter parents" who grew up on "participation trophies" and the other tenets of terminal liberalism.  It would be funny if it had not been so predictable, destructive and difficult to deal with in young adults who have believed liberalism all their lives.

We have long wondered why high schools never included a one semester course in personal economics.  Their graduates have not a clue and in the words of the immortal Reverend Wright, "The chickens have come home to roost!"

If you grew up in a generation of children of The Great Depression, you not only heard the nightly dinner table lecture about the period and the importance of having a job and on through a long list of stories you thought quaint at best, and annoying, at worst, uttering "Oh Dad...." while Mom nodded in agreement as the family patriarch railed on while you got "the transmission of the culture."

The important difference was that as you hung out with friends over an ill-gotten six-pack of beer you discussed these matters in an informal seminar as valid and important to any that could happen and you may have even worked up the courage to ask Mom how to balance a checkbook because Mom ran the family finances.  She may have shown you in 20 minutes and you were ready for the world!

If you do a search with the string "high school personal economics" you will get 44,700,000 hits and may think the subject is covered.  In the first case, this is not for what we are looking as these courses are all about the Federal Reserve, Money Theory, World Trade, Currency Conversion and are more than enough to put you to sleep sitting up.  They have nothing about personal finance.  We have yet to find one such class and our attempts to launch projects in this area have all been ignored.  

This is easily the greatest need in the high school curriculum today.  Surely it is happening somewhere in a place where there is one guy or gal who gets chalk on his, or her, clothes every day and deals with the question at the end of the week, "Is it worth it?" taking until Monday to get to "Yes."

When asked about personal finances, 50% of prospective students identified shelter as the biggest expenditure.  The other half said their biggest expense after tuition fees would be "nights out, student societies, groceries or course materials."  A bit of confusion?

In this same study where 61% of millennials were anxious about  starting university life and 27% per cent were having panic attacks researchers also found the  prospect of leaving home was anxiety producing in this generation.  The researchers felt this generation is ill-prepared for college life and as many know, making decisions in that state of mind guarantees many will be bad.

Having taught young people of this age, albeit in one of the finest neighborhoods to be a teacher, the Fairfax district of Los Angeles in the 1960's, I am sure they will sort it out much better and quicker than their alarmist critics would have us believe.  Much of this concern is expressed in the hope of starting a new "program," bureau and guess who would be in charge?

Nonetheless, we are in their debt for identifying a need as we are well able to prepare syllibi, written materials, films, computer programs, and more, to fill the need.  The problem is well defined and we are able to make it work in our time when you could pack all your worldly goods into your old car, head off to the state university, acceptance letter in hand.  You would find friends, move in with them in an apartment, share rent, look for job in a supermarket or restaurant and "Make it happen!"  That is a world worth recovering for our Milleneals.

Adrian Vance