Last autumn, Ohio University’s College of Business began offering a personal finance course to teach students how to spend money wisely.
The course includes criteria on creating an effective budget and tips on how to save, invest and make wise financial decisions.
We think these all are important topics that students should learn about. Student debt now exceeds credit card debt in the U.S., and the country is still slowly climbing its way out of the greatest economic recession the nation has seen in generations.
Perhaps greater fiscal responsibility — from borrowers and lenders alike — would have prevented the recession in the first place. A basic understanding of financial terminology and some of the simple “best practices” form the essential foundation to smart behaviors when it comes down to dollars and cents.
Hugh Sherman, dean of the College of Business, said conversations are currently circulating about making the class a general education requirement. If that becomes the case, all OU students would be required to take the course.
We cannot stress enough the importance of knowing how to save money and spend wisely, but we don’t think it is necessary to force students to take the class.
Some students assuredly already have the knowledge they would learn while taking the course, and requiring students to do something they have no interest in immediately creates a disconnect instructors would have to bridge to even allow the course’s message to sink in.
We know Sherman and others are considering mandating the course with good intentions, given that only 14 states, excluding Ohio, require a high school personal finance course, according to a study conducted by the Council for Economic Education in 2011. But it should be a student’s decision on whether or not to take the course.
And, honestly, we think students should elect to take the course. It just makes cents.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
