Grade A for the Class of 2030. On June 20, 2025, Governor Abbott signed into law a bill that requires all student to take a standalone course in personal financial literacy as a public high school graduation requirement. The State Board of Education (SBE) is required by the law to issue a rule requiring new social studies curriculum requirements for high school graduation. These new requirements shall apply to students entering the ninth grade in the 2026-2027 academic year, or thereafter. Beginning in the 2029-2030 academic year, students must successfully complete the following socials studies credits in order to graduate from high school: one credit in United States history, at least one-half credit in government and one-half credit in personal financial literacy, and one credit in economics, world geography, or world history. Basically, this law replaces the existing requirement that students take a one-half credit economics course with one-half credit personal finance course requirement. Student still have the option to take an economics course as part of the social studies curriculum requirements, but are no longer mandated to do so. The Texas Education Agency is required to develop a list of free, open-source, and publicly available curricula that may be used by a school district to provide a personal financial literacy course that satisfies this new curriculum graduation requirement. When the SBE adopts rules to implement this requirement, the law states that this adopting rule must allow students to comply with the new one half credit in personal financial literacy graduation requirement by successfully completing an advanced placement course designated by Board as containing substantively similar and rigorous academic content.
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