Financial literacy fever seems to be sweeping the nation, as a number of states have now mandated financial literacy or personal finance education as a part of public school curriculums. That’s good news — after all, we at Money Vehicle are perhaps the biggest proponents of financial literacy education!
As for which states have implemented mandates, you can check out our page to get more detail. Here’s a map, too, that helps visualize things:
As of May 2023, there are 18 total states that require some sort of personal finance education to graduate from high school, according to data from Next Gen Personal Finance. That breaks down to eight states which have fully implemented their courses, and ten that are working on implementation.
But each state has different rules and requirements for students. Some require economic classes, others require personal finance classes, and others require financial literacy classes. It’s sort of a big, muddled mess. But here’s a chart that helps break things down, with information sourced from the Council For Economic Education (chart via Ramsey Solutions):
| Require financial literacy course to be completed | Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia |
| Require a financial literacy course to be offered | Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia |
| Require financial literacy course to be offered, but can be in conjunction with other subjects | Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Texas |
| Require financial literacy standards implemented by districts | Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin |
| Include financial literacy in K-12 standards | Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, Washington |
| Have no financial literacy requirements | Alaska, California, Wyoming, Washington D.C. |
The state of financial literacy education in the U.S. is, in short, in flux. It’s always changing, and states around the country are deciding how they want to do things. Or if they want to do anything at all.
It can be hard to keep track of. But know that Money Vehicle is dedicated to doing the heavy lifting, and making sure that our course is designed with state-specific guidelines in mind to make sure that all the bases are being covered. We’ll keep you updated on the state of financial education in the U.S. going forward!
Check out the Money Vehicle textbook — you can find it here on Amazon. And if you like what you see, you can get more content sent directly to your inbox! Sign up for the Money Vehicle Movement Newsletter!
And check out our white paper: “Strategies for Increasing Financial Literacy Rates Among High School and College Students”
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