I tried to find the answer on the FDIC site.

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?

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.

@ 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’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.

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 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!