If I'd used my critical thinking skills to go to an HVAC vocational track, following years of hourly / labor Summer jobs as a teenager, and took out a business loan half of what I've spent on University studies, I'd probably have a small empire by now.
Universities are great for a liberal arts study track, but that's kind of it. I'm not even sure most require Students to study Retirement Planning or "How to Understand a Car Loan" in practical terms.
No Universities require students to do anything. On mandatory attendance, a good professor will tell you, "you're paying for it, I could care less if you show up."
But on retirement planning and car loans; these are failures of being aware of the world around you. On understanding a car loan, plenty of people that are not college educated need to and do "understand" these concepts.
Anecdotally, I bought two cars (though I didn't finance) before I turned 18; Enrolled in my first 401k by the time I was 18, and understood my work's entirely employee paid healthcare options at 16.
To the autodidact admission though; I learned about programming on my own on a TI-80; about finance from picking up a "Money" magazine - and posters on a teacher's wall from a different class doing an investment challenge, and cars from walking around the neighbor's garage.
>Universities are great for a liberal arts study track, but that's kind of it.
The thing is, they're not even that good at that! If the liberals are were doing well, we'd expect the industries that the liberal arts degrees feed into to be doing exceptional. Of course, they're not doing exceptional.
Universities are great for a liberal arts study track, but that's kind of it. I'm not even sure most require Students to study Retirement Planning or "How to Understand a Car Loan" in practical terms.