Building a better future. by Kiah

Building a better future. by Kiah - November 2021 Scholarship Essay

The public school systems that are in place right now in my opinion do not prepare students for success. The school system puts two tracks in front of you and tells you to pick one and stay on it. You either take the college readiness route and get a minimal guideline on how to make it in college. The other track you can take is straight to the workforce armed with nothing but a diploma and pat on the back. The school system does not talk to students or even prepare them on how to budget and manage their finances. Sure occasionally a school offers finances or a crash course on how to write a check in civics class. There is no true foundation or guideline for students to gain knowledge and tips on how to not go bankrupt. There is no foundation to help students learn about emergency funds and how to pay off debt. How to not get into debt in the first place and there is no class to tell about the importance of good credit. Students leave high school with knowledge on things that most of them will never use a day in their life. Armed with the wrong information but then left clueless when it comes to things like negotiation and how to build your credit and Fica score.
Students are not even taught the basis for how to do taxes. Taxes are a basic requirement all adults have to complete each year. Which leads to people doing their taxes wrong, tax fraud, and sometimes just negligence of taxes. The American Public School Systems are failing our children. Not giving them the basic information to prepare them for success in their adult life. Making our children and young adults more susceptible to making mistakes and mishandling their finances.
Leading these students to take jobs that do not suit them or give them enough to comfortably live. Promoting this cycle of poverty and living paycheck to paycheck. The value of a high school diploma has gone down tremendously over the years. One of the major reasons for that is that the schools are not properly preparing students. There are a lot of faults with the public school system that needs to be corrected. One of the ways to quickly correct that would be to offer an extensive and comprehensible finance class to all students. A class is required for all students to graduate in hopes of better preparing them for success in the future.