One in four high school students expect their parents to give them a car for graduation, or at least help pay for one. That's according to a new study which also says parents don't think their kids are ready for the financial responsibility of car ownership.
Junior Achievement and American Honda Finance Corporation commissioned the report, which includes separate surveys of teens and their parents.
Barbara VenHorst is the President of Junior Achievement of the Heartland, based in Moline. She says most teens and parents have very different ideas about whether the kids are ready to own a car. "About 3/4ths of the teens say, 'Yes, I am.' But 85% of their parents say, 'No, they aren't!'"
Owning a car can be a great way for parents to teach teenagers a lesson about the real world. And VenHorst says that lesson can be learned easily, or the hard way, depending on whether they keep up with loan and insurance payments. She also says many parents either don't know enough about financial responsibility themselves. Or they don't know how to talk to their kids about it.
Junior Achievement and American Honda Finance have created an online quiz, the Financial Test Drive, to help teenagers find out if they're ready to own a car.
