Is a high school course with personal finance concepts required to be taken as a graduation requirement? Yes, Idaho requires high school students to take 5 credits in social studies, with 1 credit being an economics course. The economics course contains some personal finance concepts.
Grade B for the Class of 2027. On March 20, 2023, the governor signed House Bill 92 into law. The bill applies to the grade 9 students in academic year 2023-2024. The law requires school districts to provide to all students in grades 9 through 12 one or more courses in personal financial literacy and money management. The law also notes that this course will fulfill the financial literacy component of the high school graduation requirement. Parallel to this effort, in 2023 the State Board of Education (SBE) amended the graduation requirements for social studies requiring that all students take one credit (a half year course) in “economics/financial literacy.” The new requirement must be fully implemented for students that graduate in 2027. These legal changes will not change Idaho's grade.
Idaho's economic standards are composed of 24 learning objectives, three of which are personal finance concepts. Based on this information, we estimate that students receive approximately 7.5 hours of instruction in personal finance.
Idaho's State Department of Education's (DOE) website includes financial literacy resources for educators. Financial literacy is one of the college and career readiness competencies identified as part of a mastery education resource created by the DOE.
The K to 12 social studies standards include modest personal finance learning objectives in grades 1 to 5 but very limited content for grades 6 to 8.
It is not clear how Idaho measures student achievement in financial literacy or how the state monitors local school district implementation of the financial literacy education requirement.
2027