I wish that I would have learned about loans and interest. I hope that my kids get the opportunity to learn more about them.
I am extremely frugal and have had to take a loan to purchase more than one car, student loans to go to college, a loan to purchase a home, and an occasional loan to purchase an appliance that died unexpectedly when we were low on money (I am thinking about saving a lot of money to go on a trip to Kauai and hopping off of the plane and coming home to find our water heater dead).
I would highly doubt that your daughter's teacher has an underlying desire to teach her that she is to be subjugated to men and that if she does not have a car loan she is a failure. She is simply trying to simulate real world situations that students MIGHT find themselves in coming up in their future. I would suspect that there was some discussion about other alternatives and that for the sake of the assignment, these were the instructions to be followed.
She picked a few good things for the kids to experiment with - most high school kids want a car, and most high school kids want a relationship - most high school kids think that they can live on love and a dime in their pocket.