How would you feel about having a mandatory class in high school that teaches about budgeting, handling or avoiding debt, making good investments, signing important documents, job interviews, and other important adult life skills?

I appreciate the sentiment, but can't really agree.

This is one of those things that seems like a common sense idea, but probably won't work out that well.

Finances are too far off for most students to care or for those few who do to have any sense of scale. Things like interviews and signing documents are basic life functions that shouldn't require time drawn from academic pursuits to teach. Failure to be able to deal with these is a failure of the individual or their upbringing. Interviewing grows out of confidence and socialization, and contracts/deal making is a basic outgrowth of reading, writing and social skills.
These skills should have grown organically by around this time. Finally, financial literacy is not a difficult subject. People tend to blow it up to cover for their own failings in winding up massively in debt, "but I didn't know, no one ever taught us _____!" Etc. But not spending more than you make, knowing you have to save for retirement if that's in the cards, and understanding anything you invest in stock can be gone tomorrow is really not very difficult. It's not worth wasting school time that could be devoted to maths or science with things that should be covered, if they need to be at all, by parents.
We shouldn't waste the time of students with competent, financially secure families just to give information to less well off students that they'll probably never be able to benefit from anyway. Make it an elective, not mandatory.

/r/AskReddit Thread