One in four children will enter adulthood with no financial education at all.
Personal debt in the UK is £1 trillion - £56 billion on credit cards.
Meanwhile, universities are to be allowed to triple the annual fee they charge students - something almost all of them will do next September.
Add to this that the Government wants to dramatically increase the number of young people in higher education and the potential for runaway personal debt spirals.
The Government focus on getting people to stay on in education is laudable. Britain does, after all, have one of the worst drop-out rates in the developed world.
Introducing more vocational subjects into secondary schools to make sure all youngsters stay engaged is part of the solution.
Tony Blair also believes sending half of all 18 to 30-year-olds to university is essential if people are to be equipped with the skills Britain needs to compete in the global knowledge- based economy.
This may be so, but there is a cost. And in tomorrow's world a greater proportion of that cost will be met by those going to university.
The Government has sought to soften the blow by re-introducing maintenance grants and forcing universities raising fees to provide bursaries.
But for most students, particularly those from families of modest income, there is little escape from substantial debt well into their working lives.
The Government claims switching payment of fees from up-front at the start of the year to after graduation will help. It calculates someone on an average graduate starting salary of £18,000 will only pay £5.20 a week.
Assuming their salary did not rise, it would take someone 66 years - excluding interest - to pay it off at that rate.
But not all graduates start on this. There is also the fact that with age comes greater financial commitments. A mortgage, children, bills.
Already millions of young adults find it impossible to get on the property ladder.
How much harder will this be when they are saddled with an average graduate debt of up to £34,000, according to Barclays, by the end of the decade?
Already, without top-up fees, the average debt for students graduating this year was £13,500, according to the bank.
The need for young people to be skilled in managing money could not be more apparent.
Today's "spend now pay later" culture is unsustainable and, if replicated by our young, they are heading for disaster.
Some children are lucky enough to grow up in a household where they learn the importance of money. But many will not.
Schools, therefore, have a vital role to play in educating youngsters in this area. Some are already good at doing this. Many are not.
Money management is not part of the National Curriculum and many schools do not touch on it. It exists loosely as a tag-on component of the newly introduced Work Related Learning.
It may be raised within Citizenship - which is part of the National Curriculum - and Personal Social and Health Education, which is not. The Government is also exploring including "financial capability" within GCSE maths.
It's a step forward, but not enough.
Financial awareness needs to be taught from a young age starting in primary school.
At secondary level, it is arguably as relevant as Citizenship. For giving young people confidence with money is every bit as essential - if not more - to creating a cohesive and inclusive society.
For this reason The Birmingham Post is today launching a campaign to raise the profile of personal finance education in schools.
We call on the Government to embed the teaching of money management into the curriculum at the very least at secondary level.
All children should leave school with a firm understanding of how to make money work for them and avoid serious debt. It will be increasingly important in the future.
The business world has much to offer here. Banks, financial firms and business groups have the expertise teachers may lack. If asked, most would be happy to help.
Now is the time to act if we are to avoid the gulf between the haves and have-nots widening beyond repair.
