By David Weisburd (printed in the Indiana Daily Student)
For the last five weeks, I’ve been meeting with numerous professors,
administrators and students about the issue of financial literacy.
There is overwhelming support for having IU add financial planning to
the mandatory curriculum for every student. In fact, in a
statistically-validated, third-party survey done by Indiana Public
Interest Research Group, 85 percent of students responded that they
believe more needs to be done in order to promote financial literacy.
Despite this, the issue is being pigeonholed and completely ignored by
the IU president and his administration.
There are several
important reasons why teaching financial planning at the university
level is crucial. For one, lack of financial planning has led to more
personal strife then any issue in the country. Financial mismanagement
is often cited as one of the top reasons for divorce in America. For
many years after graduation, students carry loans and credit card debt
that decrease their standard of living – all of which could have easily
been avoided with proper financial planning. For example, by using a
tax-free College 529 plan, parents could cover the cost of tuition and
board at an in-state school with as little as $25 per month for every
child. Credit cards could be reconsolidated. The problem is not that
these solutions are difficult to understand. The problem is they are
not being taught in universities.
In my previous column, “An
Inconvenient Truth,” I brought up national security, the low U.S.
savings rate and the possibility of class warfare as reasons for why
our educational system must change. The problem is deeper than even
these issues, and has spread throughout society. As a society, we have
embraced a policy of social welfare over personal empowerment. The
government has focused on taxing individuals more in order to account
for the poor decision making of a segment of the population. This is
different from the original intent of taxes, the idea of focusing tax
dollars toward supporting those who couldn’t support themselves: the
physically and mentally handicapped. This has led to higher taxes and a
co-dependent culture in the lower class. The national debt continues to
rise and the dollar is devaluated. This is not a sustainable model.
In
fact, the issue of accountability has spread throughout our educational
systems and universities. Tenured professors and administrators with
guaranteed job security and large pension plans have become out of
touch with the issues concerning the student body. The administration
has taken the attitude of “why should we embrace this policy change,”
rather then taking responsibility for their role in teaching the
student body. Issues such as funding, curriculum and faculty (which are
all taken into consideration in our proposal) have been overblown and
used as excuses to preserve the status quo.
I have personally
admired the work of IU President Michael McRobbie in connecting with
the student body. However, when the president spends an entire week
focusing on firing a basketball coach and will not take 30 minutes to
sit down with a student-led group, there is a big problem at our
university. This issue will not go away until the student body has a
voice at the table. If you support this issue, take two minutes to
e-mail President McRobbie at iupres@indiana.edu and join the “Financial
Literacy @ IU” group on Facebook. Let’s make this happen.
