Millennials may not be making as much money or planning for retirement as soon as Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in learning. And not only do Millennials want to become financially literate themselves; they want to teach it to the next generation.
Elementary school teachers born between 1980 and 2000 are far more likely than their older peers to push for financial literacy education in the elementary school classroom.
According to the recently published report conducted by PwC, Bridging the Financial Literacy Gap: Empowering teachers to support the next generation, a full 62% of the younger group advocate for this addition to the curriculum, versus 51% of non-Millennials. The older groups tend to believe such education should be conducted primarily at home.
The study also showed that Millennial educators were twice as likely as their older colleagues to actually take action to set this financial education in motion, with about 20% seeking grants to help fund financial literacy education.
“My theory is that Millennials were the first ones who, early on, saw the results of lack of financial discipline,” said Jason Dorsey, Millennials researcher and cofounder of The Center for Generational Kinetics in conversation with The Street. “This is a generation of teachers who are entering the profession with the most debt ever.”
This is also crucial for Gen Z, the youngest generation after Millennials, because being financially literate at a young age can give them a great advantage when to comes to making decisions about whether to take out student loans and how to budget when they get their first jobs. Learning about finances now can help this generation avoid some of the pitfalls to which Millennials fell victim, and from which they are still recovering.
Do you think elementary schools should add financial literacy to their curricula? Tell us at @JasonDorsey or @WhattheGen and don’t forget to include your #generation!
