More education needed to prevent student debt
While young people in the UK attempt to be financially savvy, they lack the skills to stop themselves getting into debt, an industry expert has warned.
Alastair Mathews, director of policy at the Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg), revealed that most young people understand that going to university is likely to lead to serious debt problems.
However, he said that schools are failing to teach youngsters the skills they need in order to minimise their debt levels.
"There's no doubt that young people now recognise that they're going to be incurring considerable financial expenditure in the years immediately after they turn 18," Mr Mathews explained.
"They need to have more opportunity to talk about issues of money in a real world context - an awful lot of what happens at school is not about that.
"Young people are serious and responsible about money anyway; I think they often just lack the knowledge and skills they need to make the best use of it."
Mr Mathews added that going to university could prove to be a vital part of a person's financial education.
He explained: "At university they've got to live independently as well and make all sorts of decisions about buying, spending and saving for future needs as well as present ones."
Figures released earlier this year by Halifax indicated that over 50 per cent of UK students have debts of more than £7,500.
Source: moneyhighstreet.com
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