It is with high praise that I address Champlain College Professor John Pelletier’s impassioned commentary in the Rutland Herald on Tuesday, Nov. 4 — “High School Grads and Financial Literacy” — wherein he meticulously detailed the irrefutable consequences of denying Vermont high school students the opportunity to take a personal finance course.
Professor Pelletier directs the college’s Center for Financial Literacy. The CFL mission, in part, is about “… preparing individuals with the tools and confidence to better plan and improve their financial futures.” In one of the most altruistic initiatives I have seen this year from any Vermont educational institution, the CFL is offering free, online, on-demand, personal finance training open to all Vermonters.
Though available for a limited time only, this free training program could literally be the proverbial gift that keeps on giving. Considering the volatility in the political and economic arena around the world, I would assert that understanding personal finance could mean the difference between life and death.
I am not a parent, but throughout my business career and as a college educator and mentor, I have witnessed firsthand the devastating circumstances young people face due to their indifference or sheer naïveté about personal finance. When young women, for instance, obsessed with marriage, ask me for advice about “how to get him to propose,” I urge them to focus on becoming confident and secure on their own, which includes becoming financially independent, instead of complaining about why their romantic partner won’t pop the question.
This perspective may sound cold-blooded and calculated to some, but it is preferable to listening with alarm to young women who embarked on marriages or domestic partnerships that not only devastated their financial future but, in some cases, their very lives. One only needs a brief discussion with some of Vermont’s most dedicated nonprofit leaders to learn about the excruciating trauma many Vermont families are facing, much of it rooted in financial emergencies.
Among my boomer cohort, several friends admit they married for reasons they now regret and feel trapped because they are financially dependent on their partner. Most of these women are college-educated, some even with master’s degrees.
To be clear, young men are also facing crises due to myriad issues, especially technology addiction and its propensity to induce rage and isolation, as well as their own lack of agency regarding personal finance. Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business, has conducted extensive scholarly research on the travails of these young men and how parents and other adults can help them.
For the record, Galloway was not one of my professors at Stern, and I am not a fan of his style; his outsized ego often gets in the way of his altruism, and he delights in courting controversy. However, in a recent television interview to promote his new book, “Notes on Being A Man,” Galloway’s gravitas was evident as he delivered scores of data points, insights and real-world solutions for parents of boys and young men. I couldn’t stop watching, and I forwarded links of the interview to my friends who have sons.
Motivating children, regardless of gender expression, to be financially literate goes beyond doing well in school, learning an essential and respectful trade, or embarking on a career that provides them with their own earning potential before committing to a life partner. My own parents were immigrants who worked arduous schedules in Philadelphia’s garment factories, but when I struggled with math in fourth grade, they sacrificed to pay for a tutor. It was their perception that understanding math, and eventually finance, was essential to becoming a responsible and thriving adult.
Prior to his leadership of Champlain College’s Center for Financial Literacy, Professor Pelletier had a stellar business career, including serving as chief operating officer and/or chief legal officer at some of the largest asset management firms in the United States. His credentials include a law degree and an master’s degree in public policy from Duke University, and his advocacy has been lauded by several consumer watchdog institutions.
Professor Pelletier’s mission to ensure Vermont high school students have access to a personal finance course is one that parents, teachers and mentors should applaud. Much of what our nonprofit leaders see every day in their valiant work with populations in dire straits might be preventable. While personal finance training cannot guarantee financial security long-term — the world is too uncertain for that — the free personal finance course Champlain College is offering between now and the end of January could literally become the gift that keeps on giving.
