The U.K. in early February made it all but official: personal finance instruction will be mandatory throughout the school system beginning in 2014. This is an important development that largely fell on deaf ears in the U.S., where government has been dithering in the realm of financial education for years. It’s not that the U.S. isn’t on board for measures to help individuals raise their financial acumen. In many ways, the U.S. is a global leader on this front. We have a formal National Strategy for Financial Literacy and both private sector and public sector presidential commissions looking into what works best. What we don’t have is a lot of action, like a federal mandate to require financial literacy coursework in schools. The U.K. just joined Australia and Singapore in this regard, and others like Canada and New Zealand seem headed the same direction. (MORE: Making Personal Finance Cool to Kids) “It’s encouraging to see an effort that promotes financial literacy nationwide, particularly one that incorporates lessons of finance and economics into subjects already taught in the classroom,” Nan Morrison, CEO of the Council for Economic Education, said of the U.K. development. “This will help students to understand these lesson’s relevance and also build their knowledge over time.” The CEE and other advocacy groups are fighting for similar steps in the U.S., but face broad hurdles. There is a lot of conflicting data as to what kind of lessons actually work. We have built a library of research papers topping 1,400 globally and are essentially studying our way to inertia. There is also the question of who is in charge. In the U.S., states determine school curricula. “We believe in school-based financial education and commend the U.K. on its efforts,” says Laura Levine, executive director of the JumpStart Coalition for Financial Literacy. “In the U.S., we need to realize that we’re a very large country that sets educational requirements at the state or local level; so we’re not likely to get nationwide financial education with the flip of a switch. But … Continue reading Bold New Rule: Students in the U.K. Must Study Personal Finance