Being Better With Money by London

Being Better With Money by London - June 2025 Scholarship Essay

While no student likes to take classes they don’t have to, this extracurricular would work because everybody likes money. Financial Readiness is an elective that I think should be a required class. I believe this should be an elective because it can help curate responsible adults.
Being a current college student, I wish that I was better educated on being more responsible about money. It’s easy to get caught up in living beyond your means by constantly going to the mall, using food services, and looking through Amazon for things to buy. While there is nothing wrong with doing this from time to time, doing this every week can lead to problems. Students seeing the behaviors listed above from family can influence students to copy what they see others do with their money.
Being ready financially at any time can be incredibly helpful when becoming an adult. This being a required class can teach students how to budget, save money, and how to avoid debt. Debt is hopefully a problem that you won’t have to deal with, but it does happen, and you need to be informed of the ins and outs. When or if a student decides to go to college, you are introduced to loans and this is something that you should be informed about. People tend not to reach out for help when debt is accrued because they think they can solve it on their own, and they feel too ashamed to ask for help.
This also applies to credit cards. The easiest debt to get into is because when the loaners lend it they rely on you to pay it back, and they will let it pile up. Mindlessly swiping your card and not knowing how you will pay it back after payments are due can catch up with you quickly. Sometimes you don’t even realize how quickly you go overboard by just swiping your card. Although credit cards can be helpful, they do more harm than good when not taught properly about how to use them.
So this class would be helpful to teach students how to make better financial decisions when they start making money and how to achieve personal financial goals. I don’t ever think it’s too late to learn financial literacy, but it helps when students already have a history of what to do, because when you know better you do better.