Pennsylvania - 2023

Final Grade

C

Projected Grade

C

Graduation Requirements

Is a high school course with personal finance concepts required to be taken as a graduation requirement? No, Pennsylvania does not require a specific course for graduation that includes these concepts.

Projected Grade Narrative

No policy change is pending that would change Pennsylvania’s grade.

High School Education Standards

State regulations require that local school district instruction be aligned with academic standards approved by the State Board of Education (BOE) and that the following subject areas be provided to every student in high school: (i) social studies, including economics and (ii) family and consumer sciences, including principles of consumer behavior. Planned instruction by local school districts may be provided as a separate course or as an instructional unit within a course or other interdisciplinary instructional activity. Under Pennsylvania regulations, academic standards refer to what a student should know and be able to do at a specified grade level and describes the knowledge and skills that students will be expected to demonstrate before graduation. Local school curriculum is required to be designed to achieve the academic standards approved by the BOE. Pennsylvania does not have stand-alone standards for personal finance. Instead, personal finance concepts are found in multiple academic areas, including economics and family and consumer sciences. Economics has 27 separate standards and five are personal finance in nature. Family and consumer sciences standards have seven financial and resource management standards. How these standards are implemented is left to the local control of each school district.

Extra Credit

Although these subjects are not required to be taught to all students, financial literacy concepts can also be found in the academic standards approved for the following topics: career education and work; and business, computer, and information technology. The Department of Education provides some personal finance education resources on its website.

Caveat

Since there is no specified delivery method for local school district instruction in financial literacy topics, it is likely that the quality and quantity of instruction varies greatly from school district to school district. It is not clear how Pennsylvania measures student achievement in financial literacy or how the state monitors local school district implementation of the financial literacy education requirements provided through other content areas. According to a 2016 report, 75 school districts (nearly 15% of all school districts) require students to take a stand-alone course in personal finance before graduation.

Year Of Projected Grade

2028