Florida - 2023

Final Grade

C

Projected Grade

A

Graduation Requirements

Is a high school course with personal finance concepts required to be taken as a graduation requirement? No, personal finance is not included in the graduation requirements, either as a stand-alone course or embedded in another course. A half-credit economics course is a graduation requirement; however, since the passage of a 2019 law, this course is no longer required to include any personal finance content.

Projected Grade Narrative

Grade A for the Class of 2026. In March 2022, the governor signed into law a bill (SB 1054) that revised the topics required to be included in the state's financial literacy education standards. The bill also requires that beginning with students entering grade 9 in the 2022–2023 academic year (the Class of 2026), students must earn a half-credit (a half-year standalone course) in personal financial literacy and money management in order to graduate from high school. Accordingly, the bill reduces the current number of elective credits required to earn a standard high school diploma from 8 to 7.5 credits.

High School Education Standards

Prior to 2019, every high school student was required to take a half-credit economics course in order to graduate. Substantive financial literacy topics were included in the social studies standards for this economics course. In our Center's 2017 report, we estimated, based on the required economics course's education standards, that at least half of this half-year course was allocated to personal finance topics. In 2019, a law was passed that substantially changed what was required for financial literacy instruction in Florida's high schools. For the Class of 2020 until the class of 2025, school districts are required to offer a financial literacy course consisting of at least a half-credit as an elective; however, it is not a graduation requirement.

Extra Credit

Not applicable.

Caveat

It is not clear how Florida measures how many students take the available financial literacy elective course or student achievement in financial literacy.

Year Of Projected Grade

2026