Not only is Personal Finance a big deal at Wheeling Park High School, but also in many high schools across the United States. Next school year, starting with the class of 2028, Personal Finance is becoming a graduation requirement.
At Wheeling Park, this course is an elective and counts as a half credit – one semester class. This course has also been a part of the CTE Accounting Finance completer program, which was a full-year class.
Money is something that can be very difficult to manage and keep track of, especially as high schoolers. It is very important that we as high schoolers learn how to manage our money as soon as possible.
Inherently, every student is either a spender or a saver.
“The reality is that our present decisions indicate what our future looks like, that is where you have to start tracking your money,” said Personal Finance teacher, Mr. Michaels. “Our goal is to save and invest about 20% of our income.”
Most people are unable to generate wealth through labor alone, that’s why they have to learn how to save and invest.
“That’s what Personal Finance is about, understanding how we budget, what are the downfalls, what are the pitfalls of debt, and what the bad side of debt is,” said Michaels.
Personal Finance is not just important in our daily life, but also in the math aspect.
“The math is about 20% of personal finance and the other is 80% of behavior,” said Michaels.
The math that we acquire can work to our benefit or to our detriment. A big benefit is if we start saving early, we take advantage of compounding our interest, compounding returns, and our money naturally grows for us.
“The math is always working, we might not know it’s there, but it’s working,” said Michaels.
While it is easy to stop at Starbucks every morning and get a 7$ drink, this can quickly develop into a bad habit.
“Good or bad habits stay with us,” said Michaels. “If we are in the habit now of spending all of our money, guess what habit we take with us into the future when we start earning more money.”
Keira Regal is a junior at Wheeling Park and she is planning on taking Personal Finance next school year.
“I’m going to take this class because I want to go into accounting in the future and I just want a good foundation for it,” said Regal. “Also, I want to be a completer in the course so it looks a little bit better on my college applications.”
As high schoolers, it is very important that we take time to understand and learn how to manage our money before it manages us.
