Why Financial Education Needs to Change for Young People
When we teach kids that money, it’s common to tell them that good outcomes come down to better choices. But that story leaves young people unprepared when life doesn’t go to plan.
In this article, Just Finance Foundation’s Head of Financial Education, Laura Halloran, shares what meaningful financial education looks like and what needs to change about how we teach kids about money.
How many times have you been told your choices are costing you money? That if you just budgeted better, cut back more, or tried harder, things would feel easier? That you could have more?
That story is everywhere in headlines, on social media, from our banks. And it quietly teaches young people the same narrow lesson: better choices = better outcomes.
The problem is that story doesn’t just oversimplify money, it actively sets people up to struggle with it. When young people are taught that financial outcomes are mainly about personal choices and discipline, they’re left unprepared for the realities they don’t control. When the unexpected hits, they’re more likely to panic, blame themselves, or take risky shortcuts - not because they’re irresponsible, but because no one taught them how financial systems actually work.
Too often, financial education focuses on individual behaviour with no broader context: spend less, save more, plan better. But these skills, while useful, are not the whole picture.
Money stress doesn’t usually come from our personal choices. It comes from low wages, high housing costs, insecure work, caring responsibilities, health costs, and financial systems that are hard to navigate and harder to challenge. You can do everything “right” and still not have enough.
When we ignore that, young people start to feel responsible for things that were never in their control. Confidence drops, shame creeps in, and learning shuts down. That’s not what education is meant to do.
Financial education can’t fix poverty or inequality on its own. But it can help young people understand the financial systems they’re living in, recognise risks and opportunities, and feel confident acting when something doesn’t seem right. It can build clarity, confidence and agency, especially for those who haven’t grown up with easy access to money knowledge.
That’s why meaningful financial education matters. And it’s why we need to change what we teach and how we talk about money.
Helping young people make sense of the world of money
Money isn’t just something you spend. It’s a system, a set of rules, institutions, incentives and power structures that shape what’s possible in people’s lives.
Young people deserve to understand that full picture. Not just how to save or budget, but how money actually works in the real world, including:
How credit works and why it’s designed the way it is
What taxes actually do
How debt, savings, interest and risk really function
Who benefits from which financial rules (and who doesn’t)
How emotions shape every financial choice we make
You can have financial goals that aren’t just about how much money you’ve got
It’s not about turning all young people into experts. It’s about helping them feel confident instead of confused. When you understand the rules of the game, you’re better able participate, and more able to question when something doesn’t feel right for you.
Money is emotional (whether we admit it or not)
Money is one of the most emotional topics in our lives. It carries shame, pride, fear, hope, pressure, guilt and joy -sometimes all at once. Yet most financial education treats money as purely rational. As if people always make choices with spreadsheets instead of brains and dreams and feelings.
Young people absorb money stories long before they understand money systems. “We can’t afford that.” “Money causes arguments.” “Talking about money is rude.” “You won’t make a living doing what you love.” “Time is money.”
If we don’t create space to explore these emotional layers, young people are left trying to manage powerful feelings without any tools and then later wondering why “doing the right thing” feels so hard.
Meaningful financial education helps young people notice how emotions shape money choices, without judgement. It normalises uncertainty, builds self-awareness, and replaces shame with curiosity – which is where informed choices actually start.
Making the right choices for you
Most financial education teaches rules: save this much, spend this way, avoid that mistake. But real life doesn’t come with answer sheets, it comes with compromise.
Should I take a higher-paying job I don’t enjoy, or a lower-paying one I love? Should I save for the future or spend on something meaningful now? Should I move out, stay home, retrain, travel, rest?
Young people need to understand that there is no single correct answer to these questions - only informed choices that align (or don’t) with what matters to them.
Instead of teaching young people how to make perfect choices in an imperfect world, at Just Finance Foundation (JFF) we focus on helping them ask good questions, understand consequences, weigh up compromises and trade-offs, reflect on values and what makes them happy, and adjust when things change.
Confidence and success (whatever success means to you) doesn’t come from never getting things wrong. It comes from knowing you can figure things out when you do.
What this looks like in real classrooms
Learning about money with JFF, you won’t find lectures about not buying the toy you want or directions about which kind of savings account to open. You’ll find conversations about:
Where does our money come from?
How does money make us feel?
What can we use our money for?
How does our money help other people?
How can we look after our money?
We talk about what young people want money to make possible in their lives. We talk about earning wages, debt, social pressures, and risk, alongside practical skills like saving, budgeting and understanding what investing means. We make sure this knowledge sits inside context, values, emotions and goals, not above them.
With this approach, young people who have never talked about money before are suddenly full of questions because they feel curious instead of ashamed. We see confidence grow, not because they can calculate interest but because they finally feel like money is something they can understand. That’s the shift we’re working towards at JFF.
Let’s change the story about financial education together
The story we tell about money and financial education isn’t helping because we’re preparing young people for perfect decisions in an imperfect world. It’s no wonder that so many young people feel anxious, ashamed or disengaged when money comes up.
We can do better – starting right now. How we talk about money in classrooms, in policy, in families and across the media, really matters. The stories we tell shape what young people believe is possible for them.
Financial education should help young people feel like money is something they can learn about, talk about and use to shape their lives. That’s the financial education we believe in at JFF – and we would love more people to be part of building it.
laura halloran
Laura is the Head of Financial Education at Just Finance Foundation, where she leads programmes supporting children and young people to understand money, build financial confidence and make choices aligned with their goals.