The op-ed piece from Rep. Hilovsky dated April 4 made some excellent points on the value to our students of the financial literacy skills required for a more successful and fruitful life; benefits which would accrue to them directly from the establishment of a statewide financial literacy requirement for our high school students. As a retired financial services executive and parent, I could not have said it any better.
But how can this legislation help the state and community beyond these very tangible benefits to our students? The most direct impact will be to provide a more educated workforce with direct benefit to employers and a higher level of success for those with entrepreneurial ambitions, producing direct and measurable economic benefits throughout the state. Some of the students may encourage parents and other family members to apply many of the skills and concepts which they may not have been exposed to as part of their own educational journey. It may also help to relieve our local landscape of some of the payday lenders, rent-to-own furniture and property companies, pawnshops and many of the more predatory businesses that have historically victimized the financially un- or under-informed. While improved financial literacy is also known to reduce the incidence of personal bankruptcy, it should derivatively reduce some of the burden on government dependence.
One of the 19th century tenets of financial literacy is that “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Benefits rarely exist without cost. In this case, we must acknowledge that much of the heavy lifting here will come from our educators and school administrators. Thankfully, they teach our civil engineers physics, our doctors and nurses are taught biology and chemistry, and our artists and musicians benefit from excellent instruction by devoted mentors. In turn, we are stronger, safer and more enriched as a society. The opportunity in financial literacy for our educators, who selflessly provide these skills, is to be on the vanguard of a generational shift in adding critical and life-altering skills for all of our students throughout Delaware, driving enduring and beneficial changes for generations to come. The time is now.
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