Money Is Getting More Complicated — and We Need to Talk About It

I was recently invited to attend the 2026 Teaching Personal Finance Conference at Stanford University. I spent a full day listening to educators from across the country and the world grapple with an important question: How do you teach people about money?

There isn’t a simple answer. But one thing I took away is that it’s important to talk about money. That was the whole point of the conference: to share experiences and research, and talk about successes and challenges.

And there are plenty of challenges.

Financial literacy is low, according to data from the 2026 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index. On average, U.S. adults answered less than half (47%) of the 28 index questions correctly. Gen Z scored lower than older generations, answering 38% of questions correctly.

The personal finance world is becoming a lot more complicated. “The level and complexity of the decisions that consumers face today is at an all-time high,” says Gustavo Barboza, professor of international business at Loyola University New Orleans.

A few decades ago, there were fewer retirement accounts and investment products. Things like cryptocurrency, online sports betting, prediction markets, social media and AI didn’t exist.

Now, there’s an overwhelming amount of financial resources at our fingertips. And it’s not always easy to weed out the bad from the good.

There are some bright spots, though.

Financial literacy education is growing; 39 states now require students to complete a personal financial course to graduate high school, according to the 2026 Survey of the States from the Council for Economic Education. That’s four more than in 2024, when the previous survey was conducted.

So why does finance education matter?

“We need to learn to manage money, because the alternative is that money manages us,” Barboza says.

Barboza, who hosted a lunch-and-learn discussion at the Stanford conference about expanding personal finance beyond the classroom, recommends using online tools to learn at your own pace.

We can learn from each other, too.

As several conference speakers pointed out, there’s a ripple effect — people who learn financial concepts and skills often share that knowledge with their friends, families and communities.

The more open we are to talking about money, the better we can understand where we are financially and where we want to be, Barboza says.

So let’s keep the conversation going.