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By Claudia Buck
McClatchy Newspapers
Published on Sunday, May 25, 2008
Are you smarter than the average 12th-grader? Try this quick financial IQ test:
(1) Which of the following tends to have the highest growth over long periods, say 18 years?
a) A checking account.
b) Stocks.
c) A U.S. savings bond.
d) A savings account.
(2) At age 25, Mary began saving $2,000 a year. At age 50, Rob started saving $4,000 a year. They now are both age 75. Who has more money saved for retirement?
a) They each have the same amount.
b) Rob, because he saved a bigger amount each year.
c) Mary, because her money grew for a longer time at compound interest.
If you correctly answered ''b'' and ''c,'' you did better than most of the nation's high school seniors, according to a recent survey by the JumpStart Coalition on Personal Financial Literacy, based in Washington, D.C.
About 50 percent of high school seniors answered the second question correctly. Barely 17 percent got the first one right. On other questions about credit-card debt, savings and retirement, the vast majority of 12th-graders didn't score so well. Overall, high school seniors managed to correctly answer only 48.3 percent of the 31 questions.
Such results nag at financial experts, lawmakers and others who are ramping up efforts to better educate students on financial matters. The cause has taken on increasing urgency, given rising rates of bankruptcy, foreclosures and other signs of economic distress.
''If we'd had more people in this country who are financially literate, we'd have mitigated some of the mortgage meltdown,'' said California Assemblyman Ted Lieu. He's a Democrat who's pushing a bill to establish a Financial Services Corps of volunteers in low- and middle-income communities to teach the basics on auto, home and other consumer loans — in Spanish, English, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean.
Lieu's bill would also launch a consumer Web site of financial literacy resources and create an advisory committee in the state controller's office to promote financial literacy statewide.
Lieu, who has unsuccessfully pushed two previous bills on financial literacy in schools, says this time he's going broader — and cheaper.
''To not have people financially literate is a recipe for disaster,'' said Lieu, a lawyer and former investment adviser, who's hoping this bill, which relies largely on volunteers and a Web site, will pass muster in a tight budget year.
Elsewhere, financial literacy efforts are continuing to ramp up nationwide. This month, high school teachers were asked to give their seniors an online test gauging their financial readiness, part of an initiative by the new President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy. Launched in January, the federal council — whose chairman is financial services company founder Charles Schwab — seeks to gauge students' financial readiness and dangle rewards to those who do well.
On other fronts, there have been efforts in Congress this year to increase funding for personal finance training.
''This generation is going to emerge with so many more big issues: things like funding their own retirement, paying for their own health care. They're ill equipped to handle those issues, unless it's taught,'' said Jean Chatzky, a New York personal finance author and consultant to the Oprah Winfrey television show. ''Whether it's a full semester or a one-week crash course, something would better than nothing.''
And Chatzky, a mother of two, says financial education should start sooner, at least in junior high ''when kids start to want high-ticket items,'' like expensive sneakers or the latest portable media player.
She and others advocate making personal finance mandatory in schools.
''There should be a high school exit exam on personal finance,'' said Janet Ulmer, a retired high school teacher in Sacramento. Ulmer believes students should be taught the basics on apartment rental contracts, sharing finances with roommates, saving for major purchases — ''even how much you'll pay for that Xbox if you buy it on credit.''
Having financial conversations at home isn't always possible, especially when so many adults are mired in debt. For many parents, talking about finances with their kids ''is just as hard as having the birds-and-bees conversation,'' said Jason Alderman, who oversees Web sites and financial tools for high school and college students for Visa, the financial card company.
Indeed, a Teens & Money survey released earlier this year found that while 70 percent of parents had taught their kids how to do laundry, only 34 percent had taught them how to balance a checking account. Fewer still — 19 percent — had explained how to invest money to make it grow.
Although the push for personal financial literacy has taken on a new resonance with the wobbly economy, it isn't exactly a new idea. As proof, Lieu dug up this 220-year-old quote from a former president and founding father, John Adams:
''All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution . . . not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.''
Said Lieu, ''It looks like little has changed since 1787.''
Are you smarter than the average 12th-grader? Try this quick financial IQ test:
Get the full article here.
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