You’re a college student and its 3 a.m and you’re still awake, but it’s not because you’re studying for an important test or rocking it out at a party with your friends.

It’s because of one little thing you never learned to do – taxes. You search frantically online for the answers to your questions and soon realize that this isn’t going to work; you’re going to have to use some of your own money and pay someone to do it for you.

Unfortunately, this is a reality for many students who are fresh out of high school.

The requirement of interactive basic living classes is a necessity to lead students to becoming independent individuals with full understanding of terms that will appear in their near future such as mortgages, taxes, and insurance.

In many ways, money management, insurance, and living expenses are complete mysteries to high school students.
These terms, which are necessary to be understood when living on your own, are not being taught to high school students.

Without classes to teach them what these crucial concepts are or how to deal with them, students are being set up to be indebted and lost in a sea of bills.

Without an understanding of the cost of living, or how to deal with basic tasks, students are not able to adequately prepare for living on their own.

By allowing students to understand what they will have to deal with in the future, they can plan ahead. Students often find confusion in tasks dealing with money, but also in dealing with applying for jobs and college. These basic living classes will allow students to be ready to tackle these challenges.

Students can correct and learn from their mistakes before they become costly. It’s far less painful to learn from mistakes now rather than later.

Learning what looks good on a job application or college résumé is much more beneficial to learn in a classroom than to learn from not receiving the job you’re trying to get.

Additionally, learning that using credit cards and running up debt is a mistake now is more helpful than learning it after you’re already seeing the consequences of your actions.

GRC requires one practical living credit for graduation, yet these practical living classes are not teaching students all the actual life skills they need.

Half a semester of P.E. won’t be a life-changing class for most, yet it is still required for seniors to graduate.

Everyone will have to face the battle of living on their own, making interactive basic living classes one of the most, if not the most, important classes our school could ever potentially offer.

There are many more skills that students need to learn than just taxes and insurance things such as W2 forms, balancing a checkbook, managing a budget, and avoiding credit card debt just to name a few.

It’s important to invest in the future of students now before they’ve made irreversible mistakes.

With the addition of required basic living classes, there will be one less sleepless night in every student’s near future.