Online courses in investing are available in many formats, media, locations, prices, and for a wide range of prices. Online investment education is in its golden age, according to me.
Looking for incredible detail? A paid course can be found on a course website on any topic that is money.
You need a little bit of information to help you get started? Google a finance blog to find definitions and insight into a question.
A comprehensive guide for beginners to investing in the stock exchange. You can choose from a variety of free courses on investing offered by blogs, personal finance websites and education portals.
Looking for something more academic? Take one of the many online courses offered by higher education institutions like the Open University.
The market seems to cater for all information needs, at any level and budget. This is a great thing to see. It’s one of the many natural outcomes of so many people being online, with tools that enable us to share our knowledge with ease.
How has the online learning revolution changed?
It is unclear if all of this information will have an impact on how we educate our children and ourselves financially.
Financial education is a topic that has been often ignored by government agencies and other institutions of higher education. We are assuming that we will learn about saving, investing, borrowing and investing. This assumption is very questionable. We hear more about poor financial decisions regarding consumer debt and investment.
Take into account the effects of financial education deficiency on the UK’s citizens.
- Because they can’t calculate the long-term impact of borrowing with a commercial rate, students end up with bank debts. They could calculate how much they would end up spending on clothes and meals out if they could compound their loan balance.
- Adults who do not contribute to their workplace pension plan because they don’t think about their retirement are deciding to delay rather than deal with the inevitable problems their generation might face once they retire.
It is obvious that we need to raise the standard of financial literacy in our society. Online courses may be a way to do this. Are there ways we can access the online education portals and course providers and spread this knowledge across the population?
Education costs
Cost is the main obstacle to any national education program. The Department for Education in the UK has a relatively large sum to spend, but this is already allocated to financially-stretched schools, and the opening of any new curricula will meet with resistance because this will necessarily involve de-funding other useful areas.
We should therefore look beyond the local education authorities to see what we can do individually to improve our game and that of our family members, spouses, children and other loved ones.
It’s not unusual for casual gatherings such as dinner parties or birthday parties to include discussions about financial topics like house prices, saving, and other ways to save money. Problem is, nobody expects you to give a class on budgeting or saving at a buffet for 15 minutes.
This is where many online education options come in handy. We can find online courses that are great and useful and share them with our friends. This has many benefits:
- It’s completely free so it won’t make your family feel pressured into buying anything.
- They can complete it at their own pace so that they can make it work around their lives.
- It can be presented as something that you have done and found useful.
This allows us to share online investing courses between our networks. For those who are proactive, it will provide a smart way for people increase their financial savvy, and help them prepare for a confusing and increasingly busy financial world.
Online investing courses will change how we learn money. It doesn’t seem like formal education is going to create a money class for children anytime soon. So I don’t believe we have any choice. We can increase the reach of online tutorials and courses by sharing our personal experiences and recommending friends and family.
This will help us solve problems such as debt, over-saving or under-saving. These issues currently place stress on households budgets, and entire families.