Personal Finance Classes Help People Make Better Loan Choices



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There are more payday lenders in the country than McDonald's or Starbucks.

Young adults who are required to take a personal finance course to be able to graduate have 4 percentage points less on the odds of getting a payday loan than their peers, according to Harvey.

This is a significant drop considering that nearly 20% of Americans aged 19 to 31 report using short-term loans.

Harvey compared the behavior of people living in a state with a personal finance education mandate to those of their older counterparts living in the same state and their counterparts of the same age living in a state without a warrant.

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In some clbadrooms, including those in Tennessee and Utah, the risks badociated with payday loans are directly taken into account. In other schools across the country, teachers stick to more general topics such as interest rates and debt management. Once students have left the clbadroom, both types of loan arouse some mistrust among students, Harvey said.

Another recent study found that in states where personal finance education is mandatory, students make better decisions about how to finance their education. For example, they do not incur as much private debt.

"My goal in payday loans was to talk about the applicability of these courses to situations that students will encounter in the very near future," Harvey said.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures Invest in acorns.

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