Welcome to

Money and debt are every day struggles for many Floridians and maybe we wish we had a little help with it before leaving school. As Matt Galka tells us, lawmakers are trying to make sure graduating students know how to handle cash.

Lani Page speaks for a lot of high schoolers, and maybe a few adults, too, when she says she has no idea what A.P.R. is.  Florida lawmakers are bringing back The Money Course for just that reason: a required stand alone course to teach kids about spending, loans and debt.

Page, a high school senior, says she could use the info before she goes off to the University of Central Florida.

“As a senior who is going on to college in 4 months, I have no idea how to be an adult and have any sort of financial responsibility” she said.

Jacksonville economics teacher Pat Curran says he’s seen first hand how little his students know about real world finances.  One of his students last year was the first to open a bank account in her family, and first to get a credit card.

“I said are you sure it’s a credit card? Sure it’s not a debit card? To be honest with you kids don’t know the difference. She said no it’s a credit card, she showed it to me, it was a credit card. And my next question was ‘you work where?’ and she said “I don’t have a job,” said Curran. “I want the course to make sure that scenario doesn’t happen.”

The same proposal had momentum last year but was ultimately declined in the House. House sponsor Heather Fitzenhagen says things will be different in 2015.

“I think last year we had a lot of focus on just getting our head around about what we were going to do with the Florida Standards, so we really needed to focus on that first,” she said.

Lawmakers will get their first look at the bill next week.

Financial literacy does get some class time currently: it’s a small part of social studies curriculums.