America is educating a nation of investors
美国正在培养一代投资者
Encouraged by research, more states are requiring schools to teach personal finance
受到研究结果的鼓舞，越来越多的州要求学校教授个人理财知识
“How is the stockmarket looking today?” asks Jennifer Varga, a teacher at Memorial Middle School in Willingboro, New Jersey, a suburb about 20 miles outside Philadelphia.
“今天的股市行情如何？”新泽西州威灵伯罗市纪念中学的老师珍妮弗·瓦尔加（Jennifer Varga）问道，这所学校位于距离费城约20英里的郊区。
She has projected a live visualisation of S&P 500 companies sorted by market cap onto the board at the front of her classroom. It is a sea of mostly red boxes.
她把一张按市值排序的标准普尔500指数公司的实时图像投影在教室前面的黑板上。投影上大多是红色方框。（译者注：S&P 500 是一个美国股票市场指数，由标准普尔金融服务公司（Standard & Poor's）维护。这个指数包括了在美国上市的500家大型公开交易公司，涵盖了所有重要行业，因此被广泛认为是反映美国股市整体表现的最佳指标。）
A 14-year-old pupil quickly answers: “Trash!” She is not wrong—it was a rubbish morning for the index on June 11th.
一名14岁的学生立刻回答道：“糟糕透了！”她说得没错——6月11日这天股市指数表现确实很糟糕。
Ms Varga adjusts the picture to show the S&P’s rise over the past month, then the past six months.
瓦尔加老师调整了投影图像，展示了标普在过去一个月和过去六个月的涨幅情况。
The pupils nod approvingly at the sea of green boxes as Ms Varga explains the virtues of investing long-term.
瓦尔加老师阐述了长期投资的优点，学生们对着满屏绿色方框点头表示认同。
Personal-finance courses that teach pupils best practices for managing their money are spreading across America, propelled by recent state laws requiring such instruction.
近年来，在各州立法要求开设个人理财课程的推动下，教授学生最佳理财方法的个人理财课程正在全美普及。
Since 2020, 17 states have adopted mandates that make taking a financial-literacy course a requirement for high-school graduation, bringing the total up to 25. ***
自2020年以来，有17个州已经通过法令，将财务知识课程作为高中毕业的必修课程，从而使得当前共有25个州设立了这样的规定。
According to Tim Ranzetta, the co-founder of Next Gen Personal Finance, an advocacy group, 53% of pupils are in a state that currently requires or has decided to soon require such a course to graduate. That figure will probably grow.
据“下一代个人理财”倡导组织的联合创始人蒂姆·兰泽塔（Tim Ranzetta）称，目前有53%的学生所在的州已经要求或即将要求修读此类课程才能毕业。这一数字可能还会增加。
New York State is considering a mandate, and California has a bill in the works (potentially driving up the percentage to about 70% of all American pupils).
纽约州正在考虑进行强制要求，加州也在制定相关法案（这可能将美国学习财务课程的学生比例提升至70%左右）。
Pupils in these classes learn not only how to buy and sell shares, but how to save their earnings in order to have something to invest in the first place.
这些课程不仅教授学生如何买卖股票，还教他们如何更好地储蓄，以便有足够的资金进行投资。
Courses teach how to properly bank, budget, manage credit and pay for college. They cover comparison shopping and the basics of how to plan and track daily expenses. (“I save all my money and spend my parents’ money!” one future hedge-fund manager said.)
课程内容涵盖了银行交易、预算规划、信用管理以及支付大学学费等方面的知识。课程还涵盖了购物货比三家、规划和追踪日常开支的基础知识。（“我把自己的钱存起来，然后花父母的钱！”一位未来的对冲基金经理如此说道。）
Young people badly need these courses.
年轻人非常需要这些课程。
According to the Programme for International Student Assessment, an international survey, only 10% of 15-year-olds in the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, score highly on financial-literacy assessments.
根据一项国际调查——国际学生评估项目（PISA）的结果显示，在一个主要由富裕国家组成的俱乐部 OECD（译者注：经济合作与发展组织）中，仅有10%的15岁青少年在财务知识评估中取得了高分。
Are personal-finance courses the answer? For a long time, the research said no.
那么，个人理财课程是解决问题的良方吗？长久以来，研究给出的答案都是否定的。
Many studies, including a meta-analysis from 2014 that was cited over 2,500 times, claimed that financial-literacy courses were ineffective.
许多研究——包括一篇被引用了2500多次的2014年的元分析——都声称，财务知识课程是无效的。（译者注：meta-analysis 是一种统计分析方法，它将来自多个独立研究的结果进行整合和分析，以得出一个总体结论。这种方法可以增强统计效力，解决不同研究之间的争议，并提供更准确、可靠的结果。）
The finding made intuitive sense; many teenagers have yet to work or manage a household.
这一结论在直观上是有道理的；因为许多青少年尚未有工作或管理家庭的经验。
But more recent findings have changed the picture.
但最近的研究结果已经改变了这种局面。
“Research has gotten better,” explains Carly Urban, an economics professor at Montana State University.
“研究已经取得了更好的进展，”蒙大拿州立大学的经济学教授卡莉·厄班（Carly Urban）解释道。
The courses themselves have also improved.
这些课程本身也有所改进。
Studies that use the gold standard of investigation — a randomised controlled trial — have found that the courses are effective in improving financial knowledge and behaviour. ***
采用了随机对照试验这一黄金调查标准的研究发现，这些课程在丰富财务知识和改善理财行为方面是有效的。
A meta-analysis of 76 randomised experiments in 33 countries found that people who take these courses learn the content, save more and budget better.
一项对33个国家76项随机实验的元分析发现，参加这些课程的人能够学到财务知识，储蓄增加，并且更好地进行预算管理。
Other studies have found that pupils who take personal-finance courses in high school borrow less money. If they do borrow for college, they choose low-cost options.
其他研究发现，在高中学习个人理财课程的学生借贷更少。如果他们确实需要贷款上大学，他们也会选择低成本的方案。
And low-income borrowers exposed to personal-finance coursework are more likely to pay down their balances and steer clear of exploitative, high-interest pay-day loans. They are also less likely to have credit-card debt, and they have higher credit scores and fewer defaults.
接受过个人理财课程教育的低收入借款人更有可能还清贷款，并且避免陷入高利发薪日贷款的陷阱。此外，他们也不太可能背负信用卡债务，而且他们的信用评分更高，违约率更低。（译者注：high-interest pay-day loans 是一种短期且通常具有极高利率的小额贷款。借款人通常在他们的下一个发薪日偿还这笔钱，因此得名“发薪日贷款”。然而，由于其高利率，这种类型的贷款可能导致债务陷阱，使得借款人更难摆脱财务困境。）
Instruction at school is necessary because it is not always available at home.
学校的（财务）教育是必要的，因为这些知识在家里不一定能学到。
“Everyone always says, ‘I wish someone taught me this when I was a kid,” says Tony Thurmond, California’s school superintendent. “I hear that from people every time I talk about it.”
“人们常说，‘我真希望小时候就有人教过我这些’，”加州的学校校长托尼·瑟蒙德（Tony Thurmond）说，“每次我谈到这个话题时，我都听到人们这样说。”
Naysayers worry about adding one more graduation requirement to California’s long list, but Mr Thurmond is willing to remove courses with less direct bearing on life skills.
反对者担心加州冗长的毕业要求清单上又多了一项，但瑟蒙德先生愿意取消那些与生活技能无直接关联的课程。
“When I was 20, it would have been nice to have this class,” Ms Varga says after the pupils she was educating about the S&P 500 have gone to lunch.
瓦尔加老师在教授标普500指数课后，学生们就吃午饭去了，她说道：“如果我在20岁的时候就能上这样的课，那该多好啊。”
She got into some financial trouble as a young adult before she learned the subjects she now teaches and improved her own money management. “I want them to be better than my generation.”
她在年轻时遇到过一些财务问题，后来才学习了现在所教的课程，并改善了自己的理财能力。“我希望他们比我们这一代人做得更好。”