Teaching Personal Finance
I had an experience this week that I found infuriating. Working in the banking industry, you get a lot of people who walk in with some preconceived notions that you often wonder where they get their information from. I have found one such source, and I’m not referring to the internet.
This semester I had to take a Political Science course because the one I took didn’t transfer to the school I’m now attending. Ok, fine. Unfortunately, Political Science is just a fancy way of saying that you have to take a Government course. Ridiculous in my opinion since this is something you should know prior to leaving high school, but whatever.
The instructor for this class is a little strange and so most of the time I take what he says with a grain of salt. But, the last class pissed me off and I had to bite my tongue in order to prevent saying what I really thought at the time.
Here’s what happened.
We’re currently going over Public Policy and how it’s developed, the challenges with getting everyone to agree, all that. Well, we get to the part where we’re talking about social insurance and the FDIC is mentioned. By the way, if you’re not familiar with the FDIC insurance, be sure to check out the posts I’ve written on it here and here. The instructor goes over how the FDIC came to be and the fact that the limits were $100,000 but were changed to $250,000 last year.
All good so far. But then, he tells everyone that the limits will revert at the end of this year and that those with over $100,000 in the bank will need to move their money in order to be protected. He continues by telling them that the insurance coverage only covers one account. And, not that college kids probably have that much, but a lot of them had questions. And every question they asked he answered WRONG!
Naturally, me being me, I had to say something. So, I tell him that the information he is giving is incorrect. I explain how the insurance REALLY works and re-answer the questions asked. He looks at me like I’m and idiot and asks me if I’m sure that I’m giving the right information. I tell him, seeing as I’ve been in the banking industry going on 7 years and I deal with these kinds of questions every day, yes, I’m 100% sure that the information I’m giving is correct.
So, my beef with this situation is that if you’re not qualified to teach personal finance, please don’t. It makes my job harder. He’s a professor at a well-respected college. Most college students are going to take for granted that they can rely on the information presented by their instructor. And, when they come to me with this wrong information, it makes my job harder to set them on the right path.
While FDIC insurance coverage isn’t Earth-shattering to a class of poor college students (or not so poor for some of them), the fact remains that he gave wrong information, blatantly wrong at that. I’ve never been a teacher in a classroom environment, so I don’t really know the process of preparing for a lecture. But, I do know that anytime I get up and speak in front of a group, I verify my facts before sharing them. I’d expect a teacher to do the same. And this is so important for finance topics because you can really mess someone up if you’re not careful.
I just don’t think people in a position of authority, or someone with a great deal of influence over people, should be teaching personal finance if they don’t know the facts. I know there are other classes where instructors cover matters of finance and it really makes me cringe because a lot of the material in these impromptu topics are subjective and usually based on the instructor’s opinion rather then fact. But, there’s no personal finance course offered to counteract – or solidify, in some cases – the information that instructors are giving these students.
It bothers me because I think financial education is so important, particularly for the younger generation that’s coming after this economic downturn we’re in. They need to learn from our mistakes and they need to make better choices. But, how can they do that when they’re given the wrong information with very little opportunity to learn the right information?
I know some of you are probably thinking I’m making a bigger deal out of this then I need to because it’s just FDIC insurance. Sure, in this class. But I’ve been in others where personal finance was discussed by the instructor and, like I said, most of the time it’s subjective. Somehow I don’t think a biology instructor should be offering tips for investing, etc. I just take exception to people trying to teach others about personal finance when they can’t even be bothered to verify their facts.
Ok, rant over. What do you think? Am I overreacting a little, or do you agree that people of influence need to be careful what they teach others, especially if it’s not an area they specialize in?
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You should find out what his credentials are and write a letter to the department head. I am an adjunct instructor in a journalism program and I have to have my master’s for that — which I do. It would be interesting to know if he has his MS or his PhD…if he does he should know better…
i would follow up with your comments to him with written confirmation from some reputable source to back up what you said.
No, you’re not overreacting. People are fed a lot of incorrect (and sometimes bizarre) information about personal finance.
I have a degree in accounting, but have worked in information technology since graduating college. People ask me tax questions from time to time. I do my best to answer them. If there is any sort of complexity, I typically point out that it has been X years since I studied tax in college, and that they might want to check with their tax professional to make sure.
So, at the very least, it would be nice for people to verbalize a disclaimer into their lecture when they are outside of their field of expertise.
I corrected a computer science professor once. It WAS her field of expertise, but she was wrong anyway – and I pointed to the exact page of the text book that pointed this out. She proceeded to write a quick sample program to verify who was right – and proved me to be correct :) Oddly, she seemed to like me MORE after that incident. She was a really bad instructor, though. The entire class took her to task in the written reviews at the end of the course. She wasn’t retained by the university.
I was the “old guy” (25) in the front row, pursuing some extra coursework. I already had a degree, so I wasn’t taking as much of a risk as people who could be risking their GPA by making a prof mad at them. Like you, I didn’t want these kids having bad information. If I hadn’t said something, they would have had a lot of difficulty trying to determine why their programs weren’t working!
This is a little off-track, but I had a similar experience to Kosmo. Same thing – I’m in IT and was taking a programming course. We were going over the results of a recent test when I noticed that one of my answers had been incorrectly marked wrong. I through a quick sample program together to prove I was right and then waited until we were ready to discuss the question I had missed. Once we got to it, I raised my hand and said that I think there may have been an error with his answer key. I went on to explain why the “right” answer was actually incorrect.
Man was he pissed. He started trying to argue with me about it right in the middle of class. By this time, another student had chimed in and said that I was correct and that the answer he gave was wrong. It was about that time that he looked at everyone in the class and said “These two guys both got A’s on their test, yet they are wasting all of YOUR time complaining about one question!” He actually tried to turn the rest of class against me…
I informed him that it wasn’t about missing one question and that I didn’t care about the couple of points I had missed. I was merely trying to point out an error with his grading and that all I really wanted was for my classmates to be given accurate information. Why he decided to take it personally I’ll never know… Even with the proof right in front of him, he refused to admit to me or the class that he was incorrect.
Point being – at least your instructor was receptive your correction and I’m sure your classmates benefited from it.
I have never had a good experience openly correcting a teacher in class – it’s a direct challenge to their right to have their job. One barely passed me, another became very dismissive, and those are just the ones I remember. I always found writing a little note and attaching it to my assignment/test/etc. or speaking to them privately got a much better reaction. By giving them a chance to figure it out for themselves and prepare their response, they were more likely to admit their mistake to the whole class without losing face.
I’m not sure I’d have bothered with the FDIC info though – like you said, it didn’t directly affect anyone in the class. And by the time you have that kind of money to plop in a savings account, you’re probably more aware of assorted financial vehicles and insurances if for no other reason than you have a CPA covering your backside.
@ Mimi – he has a Bachelor’s degree and is working on his Master’s with the school; however, I think he is still qualified due to the fact that he has served in public office for over 15 years. The problem for me is when they go into topics they don’t specialize in and give the wrong information. I communicated my concerns in his review.
@ fern – I directed him to FDIC.gov and NCUA.gov
@ Kosmo – I agree with you on the disclaimer part, I wish more instructors would use it! That’s crazy about your programming class! I find it interesting that she felt the need to write the program even though the book said she was wrong…why use a book you feel like you need to challenge? That’s weird.
@ Kev – Man I hate professor’s like that! Did you end up having trouble with him the rest of the semester? I was fortunate enough to have a professor who was receptive to the information that I was giving him, which helped appease my irritation with him. But, in your case I would have been downright pissed off!
@ MoneyMateKate – Yes, it could have backfired, but it was the end of the semester and there are over 100 students in my class. I don’t think he’d fancy trying to take the time to figure out which number in the class I am, and besides which, even if the students were not directly affected, the information was still incorrect. As a banking professional, I could not let that pass.
I continued to have issues with him only b/c he was a horrible instructor and completely unqualified to be teaching the course. The class I was in covered a specific programming language – one that I was already using everyday at work. I think he felt threatened by me b/c he knew that I was already employed as a programmer, which is ridiculous…
I taught programming courses for four years. I loved it when a student would find a mistake in my lesson. I wanted them to call me out when I was wrong. I considered it win for us both whenever a student was able to find a mistake by using the skills I taught them.
Kristy-
So how would you qualify someone to teach personal finance?
I’m all for having knowledgeable teach the subject at hand, and I whole-heartily believe we should be teaching personal finance in our high-schools and colleges. But what would qualify someone to do so?
Since what the professor was said was wrong, can you tell us what is correct? I was under the impression that after the end of 2009, you would have to move your money if you have more than $250k.
I tried to find the answer on the FDIC site.