Things Schools Don't Teach About Money
Business students reveal they don't understand credit costs or how to build credit, relying on debit cards and family advice instead. Experts Jayson Lowe and Richard Canfield say schools teach macroeconomics but skip the personal finance skills graduates actually need: how credit works, what loans cost, and how to find stable work.
Chapters
How are you supposed to make a global impact if on a personal level you don't really know how to take control of your finances, your financial life, and how to help yourself and the people around you?
What does money mean to you? Means a number. Money means my future can make me rich.
Base of life supports everything of my life. If I live without money, I can't do nothing. How do you guys feel about savings versus credit cards and loans? And which one do you prefer? I prefer to use credit cards. You can use credit cards when you, when your debit card is running out of money.
I just gotta step in here.
I heard the.
I saw.
What did he say? He said, I used that I use cards when my debit card's running out of money.
So I don't know if these guys are younger or whatever, but it's just interesting to see this guy's like, well, you know, like, I need money for my future. That's like, he got that at least. Like, he gets that money as a medium of exchange. But it sounds like there's no real intention about how he uses or spends the money because he's like, hey, yeah, my debit card's running out. No problem, I'll just tap into the credit card. He didn't finish the sentence. But if I were to finish his thought, it would be like, I'll just tap into the credit card and worry about it later. Tap type of thing, right? Hey, I wish I would have known them what I know now type of thing. I wish I would have known to live within my means. I wish I would have known to live off 90%. I wish I would have known to that I could set myself up so I'm only living off 50% or whatever, right? And putting more money to work so I don't have to work as hard later.
I thought it was interesting. The first guy just said, it's a number, it's a number. And then he like turned around, like, walk away like, oh, money, it's a number. Okay, well, that's probably true to some degree. It's a number in your bank account, either positive or negative, depending on your bank account. For the other guy, it probably is negative based on how much he's using his credit card. But one of the things I was curious about, like, okay, so if he's that interested in using the credit card, is that because someone else is paying for it? Like, is it a supplementary card on his parents account that he has maybe where he has a certain limit that parents said, hey, like, if you Run out of money, then you, you can get up to five grand that you can use. And so is that the learning process that he's gone through to get there or is it because he showed up day one and registered for his university courses and they're like, they had the table there with all the banks issuing their credit card, you know, applications. And he just got signed up for the first one because they want to indenture students to a method of bondage and slavery financially to their system right away. And he's just like, wow, this is great. Hey, if I don't have any money, I can use your money. What I didn't sense is the concept of he's got to pay that back. So it was like a disconnect. And I'm sure that is aware of that, but just in the response led me to believe like, wow, he's just going to use it with like no concern, no caution on the fact that a he's going to pay interest to a third party, potentially some fees and has no. Doesn't really seem to see like there's any idea of how to pay it back. So I definitely found that like concerning.
And what about you savings versus credit cards or loans? Like which one would you prefer if you had to use savings? Since saving is important in my culture, it's kind of helped me do we some emergency IC credit card go for.
My credit score credit card to improve his credit score. Thought that was interesting. And from that guy, my impression was that that he either has savings or he's aware of savings and probably would prioritize it. However, he's also prioritizing setting up certain aspects of his future in what credit or credit score could do for him. So I thought that was interesting. I didn't get the impression from his statement that he wanted to use a credit card for any other reason other than the intentional purpose of building credit to do things in the future. So I thought that was kind of interesting. And for the other gentleman mentioning that savings was really important and that it's, you know, culturally very important, I found that also very interesting. That is the case in a lot of cultures. There is a extreme, almost an an over the top level of push for savings and a real, not, not just concern but like an avoidance of anything debt related to. And I found that very interesting even just working with a lot of my clients and seeing how that shows up for them based on their, you know, their background or their upbringing to some degree. And it makes for some really fascinating and interesting conversations. One of the reasons this is such a fun business to be in because we get to meet people from all over the place and, and learn from them as much as they get to learn from us.
As a student we go through a lot of financial hardship. So what's one financial challenge you face as a university student? So far it's very hard to find a stable financial resource currently. It may not be difficult to find a part time job, but it's really hard to find a full time job. Right, a stable job. Do you feel that you guys are being taught enough about finances and personal financial education? No more about national aspects and global aspects. Not personalizing for me. I mean second year I haven't learned about the personal things like financing problems. So most of them are generally and global economy or something else. I like to study more personally finance. So currently I think I should be told about it. But you know, it's hard to learn practical finance.
It's hard to learn practical finance. I thought that was interesting. The gentleman says hard to learn practical finance is also the one that said it's easy to find a part time job but really hard to find a full time job. So I thought that was good that hey, he wants, he's looking for a full time job while also going apparently to full time university. So kudos to you for trying to figure out how to make that work. So there's a desire to attempt to get financial stability and to create income by getting work, but there's a difficult time doing that probably because I would imagine his school schedule makes it very difficult. And the other gentleman you know, mentioned, you know, again just, you know, that they're learning about things like global economics or maybe global monetary issues, nothing about the personal side and that there's just a difficulty in maybe being able to learn those practical skills while they're focused on the university education. There's a lot of pressure in a university scenario, especially sometimes even culturally to get really good grades. That sets you up for your future work and employment and, and career path. So all that focus and attention goes on the course of schoolwork. So there's a lot less of that attention probably available to apply the energy that you need to be able to focus on personal finance. What seems really clear to me, there's a true desire and an interest to get more of that knowledge of personal finance. And they're lacking the way to figure out what those resources are, which I found very interesting.
Just to give some more context to what was going on here. These are all business and economic students and I myself studied business in a university organization here in Ontario in Canada. And I felt the same way as someone who graduated from one of these business schools. So even though we learned so much on a global scale about what's going on in economics here and world trade and all these things, it's like I never was actually taught how to get my own house in order. So how are you supposed to make a global impact if on a personal level you don't really know how to take control of your finances, your financial life, and how to help yourself and the people around you? So I found it very interesting when I was talking to these students that, wow, I feel like I'm talking to someone who was very similar to me in their second year or first year, where I was like, I came into here to learn about business and finance. But like we said, it starts with the way you think. And if you're taught to think this way from the beginning, you never pay attention to your actual personal financial situation and only to what's going on around you. And if you're only paying attention to what's going on around you, do you really know what's going on in your own personal house? Do you have the tools that equip you to deal with that? These are all interesting things that came up for me.
Knowledge is power, and without knowledge, you know, and that's what gets, you know, ends up lacking. So with these students, even though they're studying economics, they really haven't been given a lot of the fundamental basics, like, I always like this one that I share with people every once in a while that, you know, we've learned from our mentor and coach, our Nelson Nash. There's only two forms of income, people at work and money at work. And so there's so much that you can go through it. And I went through it early in my life, too. When I went to college, it was like studying business, how to run your business. But you never learn some of those basic principles that are so key to making a difference. So I just thought of as, you know, as they were speaking. Knowledge is where power comes from. And you have to take it, you know, whether it's through your family. And if you aren't taught well, then go and find the right resources when you think about experience, because that's what you're going to get in life as you live, you're going to get experience. But one of the things that I've learned from examples throughout life and working with people in multiple different situations is that experience is not Always the best teacher. It comes too late sometimes. So there's certain things you don't want to experience. You want to learn from other people's experience. So that's where you can go and find the right source of information and knowledge. And you have to put some effort into that to find out, what do I need to know about money? That's going to help me throughout my life. And I think that's one of the things that, as I listen to them speak, there's that gap for them, and they don't have that knowledge yet.
What would you guys recommend to other university students in terms of financial advice? If their family or friends, they are doing some financial job, they should learn from them. If they got enough money, I think they can invest, they can do some investment with their friends or family who are doing, like, financial jobs.
Holy smokes.
Was that guy there the whole time? He's a smart fella. He's a sharp guy. What did he say? He said, work with family and friends and invest with family and friends. Like, while family banking.
Right.
I just thought that was pretty fascinating. He was pretty sharp. You can work with other people, but you can also learn from other people. And it's like you can divide and conquer. We hear this all the time with real estate investors and stuff like that.
Right?
Like, one person has the money, the other person has the deal. In our case, it's like clients have a goal or an objective, and we have sort of the tools, knowledge, resources, and the coaching capacity to coach them to implement the process. So it's always kind of a team effort to help achieve the objective.
