While most of the nation’s youngest adults say they learn about money from Mom and Dad, many don’t believe their parents are up to the task.
Nearly three-quarters (74%) of recent high school graduates age 18 and 19 say they mostly learn about money matters from their parents, but just 58% name parents as financial role models, according to new research from Experian. Additionally, 51% are afraid money issues will stop them from doing the things they want to do in life.
The Experian survey explored the attitudes of 545 members of Generation X on a variety of personal finance topics, ranging from how they track their finances (on their smartphones, of course) to their financial goals and the topics they want to know more about. Roughly half (52%) of 545 people surveyed were enrolled in college and the remainder (48%) were not. A majority (64%) had never taken a personal finance class.
While Gen Xers depend on their parents to teach them about personal finance, 44% of parents are “extremely reluctant” to discuss money with their kids, and 76% of children say their parents sometimes confuse them when talking about money, according to a 2017 T. Rowe Price survey.
The fact that only 19% of Gen Z consumers reported feeling that they had a solid grasp on credit is probably not surprising.
The good news is that nearly half of Gen Z consumers find personal finance interesting, Experian reported.
In fact, while many of them may not have too much experience with finance or credit, a total of 49% of Gen Z consumers surveyed said that they found financial topics to be interesting or somewhat interesting—and 11% of them even said they loved learning about the subject.
This appetite for personal finance was just as evident when the high school grads were asked whether they felt their schools were giving them enough practical education about finances. Only about one-third—36%—of Gen Z consumers said they had taken a class on a financial topic, and among that group, many of them still had looming financial questions.
Of the 64% that had never taken a financial education class, 43% reported wanting to learn to save money, 38% wanted to learn how to manage their expenses, and another 36% said they wanted to take a class that taught them how to file their taxes.
More than three-quarters of them (76%) believe classes about managing finances should be required in high school.