What I am most grateful for is my mother’s lessons in budgeting, and how to file my taxes.

Now I understand at my age, it might be something that people would wonder why I am so excited to know how to do. But the reality is that many young adults, and young people don’t know the value in budgeting or even the importance of knowing what tax forms they need to fill out.

A study mentioned in the Washington Post suggested many American children fail to understand concepts and ideas centered around financial management and literacy. As many as 24 percent of the participants surveyed said that they wished they had courses that allowed them to better understand the process.

While this is a growing concern for the future generation to not fall victim to a recession in the future, I was happy to see some states take the initiative by creating educational finance programs.

For example, Virginia elected to offer more  personal-finance classes in hopes it would help foster practical money making skills. I find this of value because those who are being affected, the young people, are now required to take a personal finance class to graduate. As recently as 2012, results by the Program of International Student Assessment results  show that U.S young adults between the ages of 21-24 years old tend to be financially iliterate.

Northern Virginia became a model for success in how it has structured its personal-finance education classes, and now ranks first in the nation. You might be wondering why it is important to pay attention to such classes.

Well for starters one student at Jisoo Jiang a Champe High School mentioned she “values the basic skills she gained from her first quarter in a personal-finance class. And the importance of a good credit score, and how to avoid scams — have more immediate real-world applications.”

Many students in Virginia are learning how personal-finance issues can affect them at various stages of life. These classes aren’t just a requirement for students, they are also skill builders to success. Classes cover the potential pitfalls of credit cards, knowing how much to spend and when to budget.

I support the need for more states to implement such requirements because of the knowledge it gives to students and young adults in the future. Many young people I know don’t know the consequences of taking student loans before they applied, and now have to pay a significant portion back. Others know nothing of the benefits of retirement funds or creating IRAs.

All of these aspects are critical to what I believe creates a financial competence. So many young people don’t know what to expect and are left in the dust wondering.

Finance classes not only build helpful skills and budgeting strategies for students, it allows them to wake up to the reality that the costs of living are far more than we initially plan for. It is time we get out there and take some time to understand budgeting.

Amina Chinnell-Mateen is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]