I am the price of a stamp away from being credit card debt free, and man oh man, does it feel GOOD!

Now, you'll notice I said "credit card debt free" rather than simply debt free. My college education has seen to it that I won't be able to say that for a while, but the good thing is that I will now be able to put that money I was spending on credit card debt towards my student loans and pay them off faster.

I learned that on the internet. That's a goofy thing to say, but it's true. I found a web site with good articles and advice about how to pay down your debt and plan for your future (fool.com if you're interested). What I'd like to know is why they don't teach children these sorts of things in school? I never took home economics, but I happen to know that there was very little economics that went into it. And regular economics -- I did take that -- was all about the rules of supply and demand and such, which I'm sure have a practical application somewhere, but nowhere did the teacher or the textbook say "if you run up debt, you have to pay it off, and here's how to go about it..."

[Little side note on economics: my teacher was Mr. Fagan, and he was one of the most boring teachers I ever ever had, but he meant well. He truly loved economics, even though none of us did, and he got really excited about things like animated graphs in the videos he showed us. He actually rewound the tape and showed us one animated graph several times. And when he taught us about the ratchet effect, which I'm sorry to admit I have no idea what is, he brought in an actual ratchet to demonstrate his point, and he was absolutely totally excited about it. And he signed his emails "Your favorite economics teacher, 007 (AKA: Mr. Fagan)" although he couldn't have been any less like James Bond if he tried.]

My school district actually did try a little bit to ready students for the real world thru a clever simulation of it they called Enterprise City. Enterprise City was (is? I'm not sure if it's still running) a converted wing of an elementary school made to look like a town square with shops, a bank, a newspaper, and a radio station. Students are assigned jobs in the various businesses, and then, during a single day, they run the shops, get paid, and go buy things from other shops. It's meant to teach students about bank accounts, checking accounts (each student gets checks, deposit slips, and a check register) and how to manage money, and it's mildly successful at that. I learned how to write a check and fill out a check register that way. Of course, I was in the fourth grade at the time, and wouldn't need the knowledge for another good eight years or so, but nevertheless, at least they tried.

I went to Enterprise City a second time, in high school, with my French class. We had to operate the town entirely in French. Good for the language skills, not terribly impressive on the money management skills.

If I were developing a high school curriculum, I would definitely include a life skills course. It would include things like how to write a resume and apply for a job, how to find and get an apartment (MUCH harder than you might think if you haven't had to do that recently!), and how to create a budget, balance your checkbook, and manage your credit.

I didn't know ANY of this stuff going into the real world (college only marginally counts as the real world)! OK, well, I knew how to balance my checkbook, sort of. I knew the principle. The actual doing was more of a challenge. And I had gotten a job, but it was kind of a fluke, and I'd only ever really written a resume to get into college. As for the whole apartment thing, that was MUCH harder than I'd ever thought it would be. There were so many factors to consider, and who knew you had to have good credit to get an apartment?? I figured if you could pay the rent you were hunky dory. I'd never seen a lease before in my life, and there I was, all alone, having to sign away my soul for all I knew. In fact, I spent most of my college years feeling very alone and unprepared for the real world and wishing to heaven there were someone to help me.

That's why I think it would be invaluable for every single high school student to have to go through a life skills class. Throw in a little sex-ed too while you're at it and show big graphic pictures of the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases to scare the beejesus out of them. (One of my high school biology teachers did that. Sure scared the crap out of me! But that's a different rant.) I wish somebody had done that for me. The kids would probably resent it like you wouldn't believe, but in the end, I bet they'd be grateful.

And be sure to include the bit about credit cards and student loans and so on. Everyone everywhere will at some point in their life have either a credit card or a loan (more likely both) unless they are independently wealthy (which still doesn't preclude either) or living under a rock. Yet no one teaches you what half of this stuff means. How many high school students do you know that could tell you what APR stands for? Or what factors contribute to their credit rating? Or what their credit rating even is or does? How many COLLEGE kids -- with credit cards -- have any idea what a finance charge is, or how long it's going to take to pay off those 200 pizzas if they're only paying the minimum payment due? Nobody tells us this stuff. If we're smart, we go online, or ask a parent (who, I might add, might not know themselves), and we somehow muddle our way through and figure out what we need to know. But more often than not, we learn the hard way: by getting turned down for a new credit card, or a student loan we need, or when we have to sign that "exit interview" paper when we graduate from college that basically says that they own our first born children. It's hard. And somebody should be teaching this stuff before it gets to that point. We can't blame our parents, because nobody taught them either. I for one am going to be an informed parent, and I'm going to make it a point to teach my kids about money. Then maybe this madness will stop!

But probably not.