The Real Failure of Financial Education: We Don't Teach Students to Invest Their Time

The Real Input to Wealth: Time and Attention

As a personal finance professor and the president of Personal Finance Reimagined, I'm constantly talking about wealth generation. It's the "output" we all strive for, but the conversation around it, particularly concerning wealth inequality, often misses the mark. It focuses too heavily on the outcome and not enough on the fundamental inputs that drive the entire system.

Every four years, the Federal Reserve releases its massive study on wealth and income across America called The Survey of Consumer Finances. (SCF) The next one is due in 2026, and based on the last 50 years of data, I don't anticipate any big surprises. The report will likely confirm what we already know: wealth inequality in America is increasing. The rich seem to be getting richer, and the not-rich are stuck where they are, or maybe even falling behind.

The Misguided Blame Game

When people talk about why this is happening, the discussion quickly pivots to external factors: unfair tax policies, systemic challenges, or past injustices. I don't dismiss the reality that certain social groups face greater obstacles on the path to prosperity—that's true. But to stop the analysis there is a mistake. It’s like blaming a heart attack on the chest pain instead of the decades of unmanaged diet and inactivity leading to the heart attack.

The real failure, in my view, is a fundamental misunderstanding of how wealth is created. People focus on wealth as the final output, the destination, and completely ignore the journey's fuel.

My decades in the banking industry, academia, and my work with Personal Finance Reimagined have taught me that we need to go back to basics. Every system has three components: inputs, process, and outputs.

• Output: This is clearly wealth—the net worth, the financial security, the freedom.

• Process: This is relatively straightforward. It’s the application of financial principles like compound interest and the time value of money. It’s the consistent habit of saving money over time and investing it in diversified vehicles like mutual funds and ETFs. The math can be sophisticated, but the core concept is simple.

But this process needs fuel. It requires the input. And this is the part people don't grasp, yet it's the key to understanding inequality.

The Great Equalizer: Time and Attention

The input to wealth generation is incredibly simple: time and attention.

Think about it:

• It’s your time to learn a high-value skill.

• It’s your time to generate innovative ideas.

• It’s your time to work and build a career.

• It's your attention for learning a healthy relationship with money.

• It’s your attention dedicated to learning investment apps and other DIY tools.

Time and attention are the sources of wages or distributions available for wealth generation.

And here’s the interesting thing about this input—it is a fixed quantity for every person on the planet, regardless of social status, background, nationality, or any other demographic: 168 hours in a week. That’s 24 hours a day, no more, no less. Time is the one non-discriminating resource we all possess equally. The great question, then, is: How are you investing your 168 hours? That is a great input to wealth.

A Professor's Concern: The Screen Time Audit

This concern about the investment of time became starkly real for me not long ago when I did an informal, seminar survey with a group of my undergraduate students. I simply asked them to pull out their smartphones and check their "Screen Time" report.

The results were staggering. For this group of about 50 bright, motivated students, the average screen time per day was around six hours. Multiply that out, and you get 42 hours a week of screen time.

Then we looked at where that time was going. For the vast majority, it was absorbed by social media—scrolling, clicking, consuming.

[Actual data from a 10/31/25 college seminar)

Think about the implications for their financial futures. As undergraduates, these young adults are—unwittingly—training themselves to donate their most precious, fixed resource (their time and attention) to social media platforms. They are fueling the wealth of others, not their own. Yes, they attend class and study, but outside of their academic obligations, their investment default is mindless social media consumption. The great thing about college is how it provides students time for adulting activities. These are typically time and activities outside of academics for learning to be an adult. It would seem many college students are using this time to become a profit provider for the social media platforms, not their own lives.

To be clear, these platforms aren't evil; they're just highly efficient at consuming the input—your attention—that you have to create wealth. Trust me, if there was no demand, there would not be a supply. The result is that students are being trained to substitute wealth creation for themselves with providing wealth to social media platforms.

The Athlete's Advantage: Pre-Wired for Wealth

The findings from the screen-time audit found a powerful contrast when I run the same exercise with student-athletes. Their average daily screen time was significantly lower, with a much tighter distribution. These students already grasp the concept of intentional time investment. Juggling practice, training, travel, and a full course load forces them to be ruthless about their 168 hours; they have no choice but to shove "ten pounds into a five-pound bag." This isn't a concern; it’s a massive advantage.

I saw this firsthand as a lead recruiting partner at KPMG. We actively sought out student-athletes because they were already pre-wired for professional success. They had developed the essential habits of discipline and time investment. They knew how to prioritize and execute under pressure. The success of the student-athlete is a verifiable outcome of intentionally investing time and attention.

But here is the hopeful truth: This mindset is available to everyone. The only difference is that student-athletes operate in a pre-fabricated environment, a system actively enforcing good time management. For the rest of us, that critical environment of intentionality and discipline must be built for ourselves.

Reimagining the Focus

Suppose we truly want to address wealth inequality. In that case, we need to shift our focus from merely observing the output (the Fed's survey) and blaming the system (taxes, policies) to understanding and mastering the most equal input every single person has.

Are past injustices and systemic barriers real? Absolutely. But those are historical outcomes. The future of your wealth is determined by the present investment of your time and attention. What creates wealth is, at its core, something we all possess in equal measure.

We need a revolution in financial education—one that teaches people to become intentional, ruthless investors of their 168 hours. Because until we all start fueling the wealth-creation process with our most valuable asset—focused time and attention—the wealth inequality reports of the future will simply continue to tell the same disappointing story.

As the president of Personal Finance Reimagined and a personal finance professor, I'm dedicated to empowering people to make better financial decisions. I hope you will join us as we help people become the best investors of their 168 hours!