Is a high school course with personal finance concepts required to be taken as a graduation requirement? Yes, New York state requires students to take a half-year course in economics to graduate. See: New York State High School Diploma Resources.
Schools are encouraged to administer the economics requirement through a course titled Economics, the Enterprise System and Finance in Grade 12. This course has four standards, one of which includes personal finance content. Based on this information, we estimate that students receive approximately 15 hours of personal finance instruction. See the social studies standards in the New York Social Studies Framework (grades nine through 12, pages 48- 50). According to the Office of Curriculum and Instruction at the Department of Public Instruction, educators are required to use the social studies framework standards when teaching the economics course required for high school graduation.
This grading is based on the assumption that the vast majority of schools teach and require the recommended course. See: New York Course Recommendation (Foreword). It is not clear how New York measures student achievement in financial literacy. According to the New York State Office of Assessment, while every high school student is required to take a regents examination in social studies, those exams do not always include questions related to personal finance.