America has a problem where if students were taught about proper financial management and making proper financial decisions the college system would fall apart,

America has a problem where if students were taught about proper financial management and making proper financial decisions the college system would fall apart, because students are expected to commit to huge debts that are often very questionable decisions. The system relies on students never understanding the magnitude of the debt they're committing to, spend 10 minutes reading the personal finance subreddits and it's shocking to see the $200,000 commitments 18 year olds were allowed to make for fluff degrees. England lacks proper financial education too, it wasn't until I was 18 that I found out how taxes worked, up until 18 I thought the taxes paid were flat rate (eg: 20% on everything or 40% on everything, vs. 20% on the first x...). Recently the company I work for offered me a pension plan, after talking to a financial advisor I discovered just how valuable starting a pension young is, up until that day I thought a pension shouldn't be a consideration when young. Super simple and super important things, completely ignored by education. Thankfully for England there is a really great consumer rights person called Martin Lewis that does a bunch of consumer finance things and recently he's been pressuring the government to introduced compulsory financial education to schools and it very recently was confirmed there will now be compulsory financial education in British schools: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/family/2013/02/financial-education-to-be-added-to-the-national-curriculum http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/family/2013/02/financi...