re: Mississippi State to Require Personal Finance/Dave Ramsey of all athletes

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There are a lot of smart people with advanced degrees living above their means and making foolish financial choices. I've been there. It's not about learning finance. It's more a question of changing your perspective about money and spending.

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I'm not denying that but smarter folks do have an easier time of it in general. See: Peyton Manning. AND like I said before the biggest factor for pro athletes going broke isn't smarts or even knowledge of basic finance but lifestyles that make it damn near a requirement to spend money (it's part of it when you're on the road and the pressure for entertainers of all stripes but especially athletes and musicians is to makes a show of wealth).

Further, one thing that's not talked about very much is that pro athletes are targeted by by professional conmen (and even the savviest of us on personal finance can fall to a conman look at Madoff's victims and before you say 'too good to be true' just remember he'd held high positions in finance like former Chairman of the NASDAQ and was considered legit and while his returns were good a lot of folks likely reasoned it was because he was connected and plugged into the system - man would've never gotten caught had the market not crashed so badly). These conmen latch onto athletes because they know exactly how much money they make and they present the kind of cons that don't sound like an obvious con or Nigerian Scam.

Then there's the agents. Many of these guys are approved by the NFL so it's not unreasonable to think they know what they're doing. It's also not unreasonable to trust the CPAs (they don't rip off normal people). Before agents, CPAs and financial advisers that ripped players off were considered rogues or folks just thought a player was making excuses. It's only now that the Players Union is trying to do something.

At any rate, the real issues I have are 1. making this a requirement for athletes instead of placing it in university studies as a segment and having all students take it (although again this shite really does belong in HS not college). 2. shopping it out