On: The student loan crisis is really an underemployme...

[chrisco255]

I wouldn't put programming as valuable than English and Math. It's clearly good to know, but honestly since we're talking about exploding debt, how about fiscal education in schools??

[SketchySeaBeast → chrisco255]

You'd need to put that as a 4th year class - if you do it first semester, people would run the numbers and start asking questions.

[xwdv → chrisco255]

Practical fiscal education in schools is almost a political nonstarter. If you were to educate high school freshmen on how savings, loans, investments, taxes and retirement planning works for a semester it would greatly alter the voting habits and priorities of that generation.

[cf141q5325 → xwdv]

Just giving out a brochure "What are taxes and how do you pay them" would already be an enormous leap forward.

I would assume going into some of the topics you suggest would lead to school getting swamped by insurance sales people.

[_carl_jung → chrisco255]

Which do you think is more valuable knowledge, solving for x or summing the columns in an excel spreadsheet?

[chrisco255 → _carl_jung]

Solving for x, because it actually rewires your brain to think logically vs typing a pre-built function with zero understanding. Besides, a huge part of programming is thinking about variables.

[_carl_jung → chrisco255]

OK, maybe bad examples. My point is that it's underemphasised in school.