Anne Hathaway Says It’s Not Cute to Be Financially Illiterate. I Agree.
When Anne Hathaway recently said that “it’s not cute to be financially illiterate,” it made me think about how little I knew about money when I started college.
I went to the US as a full-tuition scholar. My tuition and major college expenses were covered, so I never had to think seriously about how I would pay for college. But there was one thing I hadn't considered: I had almost no understanding of personal finance. Within two months of starting college, I got an on-campus job. I would work, get paid, see the money arrive in my checking account, and use it for my personal expenses. That was essentially everything I knew about money.
You work. You earn. You spend.
My money would simply sit in my checking account until I needed to use it. I didn't know that there were ways to make my money work for me. I wish I had learned about personal finance much earlier.
I didn't even understand my credit card
I didn't get my first credit card until my sophomore year of college. And when I did, I knew very little about how credit actually worked. What was a credit score? What was revolving credit? What was credit utilization? Why did any of it matter? I treated my credit card primarily as another way to pay for things. I didn't understand that the way I used it could affect my financial future. It wasn't until much later that I realized how important a good credit history could be.
One of my friends experienced this firsthand after graduating. She was rejected from multiple apartments because of her poor credit score. It was only then that she began looking into credit and realized how much this seemingly small number could affect her life. That experience really stayed with me.
If something as important as your credit score can influence whether you are able to rent an apartment, shouldn't we be learning about it before we need it?
Financial literacy shouldn't begin when you need money
This is the part that bothers me the most. We spend years in school learning mathematics, science, history and languages. But many of us graduate without knowing how to budget, understand credit, invest, manage debt, read a pay-slip, or even understand basic financial products. And often, we only learn when we are forced to. We learn about credit cards after getting one. We learn about taxes after getting our first job. We learn about investing after we start earning. We learn about loans when we need one. By then, mistakes can be expensive.
Financial literacy isn't about becoming an expert investor at 16. It's about understanding the basics early enough that you can make informed decisions when those decisions eventually become your responsibility.
This is where education needs to change
This is one of the reasons I think initiatives like Futurowise are important. Futurowise is trying to bridge the gap between what students learn in school and what they will eventually encounter in the real world. By introducing high school students to real-world problems and emerging fields early, students can begin developing an understanding of the world before they are thrown into it. Financial literacy is just one example.
Anne Hathaway said that being financially illiterate is no longer “cute.” After my own experience, I couldn't agree more.
By Mehak Mittal, Centre College class of 2026
