I Wish School Had Taught Me This: 6 Things I Learned From Looking Into Japan's Financial Education

Introduction

I'm in my thirties, and I don't have much memory of learning about money in school. But today's schools have strengthened financial education compared to before. Separating my own generation, today's adults, and today's children, let's look back over what this series has covered on Japan's financial education.

Does "school never taught me about money" still apply to today's schools?

The reason I started this series came from a feeling of "I wish school had taught me more about money."

I'm currently in my thirties. I attended junior high and high school from the late 2000s through the early 2010s. Even back then, content related to money — taxes, consumer issues, contracts, household budgeting — existed in schools to some degree.

That said, I don't remember the term "financial education" being nearly as familiar as it is today. Asset building. Financial products. Life planning. Financial literacy.

I also had almost no sense of having learned this kind of content systematically, as knowledge for heading out into society.

Today's schools, meanwhile, look different.

Especially in high school: under the curriculum guidelines implemented starting in the 2022 school year, a clear focus on asset building was built into home economics.

The financial education I received as a student and the financial education today's children receive don't appear to be the same — it looks like things have improved.

This is something I felt was genuinely important, working through this series.

Just because "I personally have no memory of learning it in school" doesn't mean "today's schools still aren't teaching it." I think there's real reason for hope in Japan's future here.

Working from that premise, here are the 6 things I learned from this series.

1. Financial education does exist in Japan — and it's been strengthened compared to before

The first thing I learned is that the assumption "Japanese schools barely teach anything about money" is no longer accurate, at least as things stand today.

Elementary school covers how to use money and shopping. Junior high covers contracts and consumer trouble. High school covers household budget management, life planning, insurance, loans, financial products, and asset building.

That said, it's not as though all of this has always been taught in exactly the same way.

Today's high schools have moved much further toward connecting finance and asset building to real life than before.

In other words, the question isn't simply "does financial education exist in Japan," but rather "when, and how much, has it been strengthened."

Back when those of us in our thirties were students, there were some classes related to money too. But we weren't learning the same content, in the same environment, as today's high schoolers.

So I don't think it's all that strange that I myself sometimes think, "wait, was there really a class like that?"

2. Other countries treat money as "knowledge for living in society"

Next, I looked into financial education in England and Australia.

It's not that other countries have it perfectly figured out. Even so, my personal impression is that they're further along than Japan.

In England, financial education is included within citizenship education.

Politics. Law. Rights. Responsibilities. Money.

In other words, finance is treated as one piece of the knowledge needed to live within society.

Australia also has a framework for learning financial literacy across multiple subjects, including math and social studies.

Salary. Taxes. Loans. Credit. Consumer rights. Fraud.

The approach is to learn these things connected to real, concrete life situations.

Similar content exists in Japan too. But because it's split across different subjects, I think it's harder for students to recognize, "oh, all of this is actually learning about money."

What I came away feeling is that it's not just about whether the content exists — it's about showing how it connects within real life.

3. Today's high schoolers want school to teach them more about money

I also looked into today's children.

In a 2023 survey of 3,000 first-year high school students nationwide, about 80% answered that they wished school taught them more about money.

And what they're asking for is fairly concrete and realistic: money trouble, loans and student loans, managing income and spending, life planning, cashless payments.

In other words, it's less "teach me how to make money through investing" and more "teach me the things I'm actually likely to struggle with once I'm out in society."

I think that's a pretty important point.

Even as financial education starts being strengthened, students themselves still feel, "I want to know more."

It's not just about adding more content — I think what's needed is more practical content.

4. Today's adults don't necessarily understand money well enough

Next, I looked at a financial literacy survey targeting adults.

In the latest 2025 survey, 30,000 people nationwide, aged 18 to 79, answered knowledge questions about money.

The average correct-answer rate across the 25 questions was 53.8%.

What matters here is that most of these 30,000 people are not from a generation that received the same financial education today's high schoolers are getting.

That includes me, in my thirties. And people in their forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies received schooling that differs even further from today's.

In other words, you can't look at this result and say "today's financial education is failing."

What it actually shows is how well Japanese adults, many of whom belong to generations that never received sufficient financial education, currently understand money.

And the result was a correct-answer rate of roughly half. It doesn't seem to be true that everything simply becomes clear naturally once you become an adult.

I myself only researched things like taxes, pensions, social insurance, and borrowing, one at a time, once I actually needed to.

I don't think it was so much that what I learned in school was insufficient — it's more that I rarely had the experience of learning it, organized as "knowledge for money in daily life."

5. Today's adults' lives are fairly difficult

I also looked at the 2025 Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions.

Households that answered life was "very difficult" or "somewhat difficult" made up 55.4% of the total.

That's more than half. Among households with children, it was 61.5%.

Many households also saw their savings decrease compared to the previous year, and the most commonly cited reason was everyday living expenses.

This, too, isn't a case of "life is difficult even though people received financial education."

Most of today's adults spent their school years in an era when financial education wasn't nearly as strengthened as it is now.

So what this survey shows is just how little financial breathing room adults in Japan today actually feel they have.

And looking at this reality, I don't think you can easily say "things work out once you're an adult" or "you naturally understand money once you start working."

It's better to give today's children at least some preparation before they head out into society.

I felt like this survey gives us one good reason for that.

6. What today's financial education will actually change is something we'll only learn going forward

Working through this whole series, this is ultimately what I think matters most.

Right now, financial education in Japan has been strengthened compared to before.

But most of the children who've received that education haven't entered society yet. Going forward, they'll get jobs. Receive paychecks. Pay taxes. Use credit cards. Take out loans. Sign up for insurance. Start investing.

As they go through experiences like these, will what they learned in school actually turn out to be useful? Will financial trouble decrease? Will people get better at managing their household budgets? Will fewer people fail at borrowing or investing?

The answers to these questions are still ahead of us.

Looking at how today's adults are relearning about money only once they actually need it, you really see how important financial education, and financial literacy, actually are.

Maybe those of us in our thirties were right on the edge of the change

Looking back over my own school years while researching this, there's something I came to accept a bit.

Those of us in our thirties aren't "a generation that learned absolutely nothing about money in school." But we also weren't "a generation where financial education was front and center the way it is now."

We're somewhere in between. We learned about taxes. We learned about contracts. We learned about ratios and interest rates.

But we rarely had the experience of thinking about all of that as "my own money, as a working adult."

If there were a class today that connected all of it together — pay statements, household budgets, taxes, credit, loans, insurance, savings, investing — I think it would be extremely practical. Rather than memorizing each system one at a time, learning it as the flow of one person's life, heading into society and living day to day.

That's my idea of an ideal financial education.

Conclusion: So today's children don't struggle in the same places we did

To sum up what this series revealed:

• Japan has had some form of education related to money for a while now

• However, financial education has been strengthened compared to before

• Other countries have systems that connect finance with life and participation in society

• Today's high schoolers themselves feel they want to learn more about money

• Today's adults face plenty of challenges, both in financial knowledge and in daily life

• The real results of today's financial education are something we'll only see going forward

I started this series out of a feeling that "school never taught me about money."

But after researching it, my thinking shifted a little.

More precisely: back when I was a student, financial education simply wasn't as close to everyday life as it is now.

And today, partly in response to that, things are gradually starting to change.

That's the situation, I think. So I do want to have hope for today's financial education.

I hope that, once today's children become adults, fewer and fewer of them will start their working lives not understanding their pay statement, not understanding taxes, never having thought about loan interest rates, or not knowing where to turn for help when they're struggling.

Not everyone needs to become rich through investing.

First, understand your own money. Protect your daily life. Avoid unnecessary risk. Ask for help when you're struggling.

Heading into society with that knowledge in hand — that's where I think the real role of financial education lies.

I hope today's children end up feeling, even just a little more than our generation did, "I'm glad I learned this in school."

And as for those of us who are adults right now...

All we can really do is keep learning on our own — through self-study, YouTube, books, whatever works. It might sound blunt, but we've ended up in a world where you have to go out and seek the answers yourself, or you won't learn any of it. Let's all do our best together.

I'm still working hard at it myself, right now.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end.