I think the same holds true for the language and nuances of money. We’ve been told for years that you had to be a stockbroker to understand how to buy and sell stocks, an insurance agent to understand how insurance works, and a licensed mortgage broker to understand the mortgage markets. All those walls are coming down and more and more people are able to have access to the knowledge of how money works.

What they do with that knowledge is up to the individual, much like it is with the Scriptures.

That’s not certainly connected. You might be teaching the already-teachable; she may be talking about mandatory classes. It’s hard to tell from the article, and I have yet to read her peer-reviewed papers on the subject.

I’m not 100% optimistic; note that her conclusions may well be wrong even if her data is correct.

This was the quote under the picture on the page with the full article: “Financial literacy classes give people the illusion that they can successfully manage their finances. So rather than seek help, they end up making worse decisions.”

How is not managing your finances at all better than trying to manage them and messing up? When people do mess up, can’t they learn from those mistakes? I’ve learned a lot about PF. I’ve made a budget, made some changes and yep, I’ve messed up. I don’t think I’ve made “worse decisions” than I did before I started learning, but I have certainly made mistakes. Then I learn from those mistakes, figure out why I made them and how to prevent and hopefully don’t make them again.

I agree, the article left me feeling confused – did they leave comments out to make her look bad? I am not sure…

I think she’s got a small valid point, though. She’s saying that government mandates on how a loan company teaches consumers are a waste of time; the loan companies will always find ways to twist the instruction (or to take a positive view, new products will arise for which the teaching is irrelevant). She says that OTHER actions would be more cost-effective.

She also says that teaching about money in the family IS effective, apparently because it teaches relative values rather than how to think about things (while still leaving the values set the way they were).

I can kinda defend what she’s saying… But the truth of which she’s saying depends utterly on the validity of the claim she makes that “Studies show that sending people to either high school personal-finance classes or adult retirement seminars does not result in better financial behavior.” If that’s true, then not only are required courses a waste of time, they’re counterproductive. OTOH, the studies that showed that may have been inapplicable…

I’d really need to see a lot more information. I’ve tossed her papers onto my “to read” stack. The first one is at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1105384, and there’s another one linked to from the same page.

I’m planning on starting an hourly, fee-only firm just for this purpose – to teach people how to do it themselves. It lowers their costs and gives them a much greater chance of reaching their goals. And it makes them less dependent on professionals – especially commissioned “professionals”.