Is a high school course with personal finance concepts required to be taken as a graduation requirement? No, Wyoming does not require any specific courses for graduation. Wyoming requires three years of instruction in social studies, including economic systems and institutions.
No policy change is pending that would change Wyoming's grade.
Wyoming's statutes and regulations require each school district to provide educational programs sufficient to meet uniform student content and performance standards at the level established by the State Board of Education in specified areas of knowledge and skills. These are broken down into "common core of knowledge" and "common core skills." The skills include "personal financial management skills." While Wyoming's laws and regulations require personal finance training to be made available to students, there are very few substantive financial literacy education standards, resources, or tools found on the Department of Education's (DOE) website. Economics must be taught as part of the social studies credits for graduation, but minimal personal finance concepts are included in those standards. Wyoming's Career and Vocational Education Content and Performance Standards also include modest personal finance concepts. Wyoming Mathematics Content and Performance Standards identify only nine math standards in all mathematics high school courses that have a potential cross- curricular connection to financial literacy.
Pre-COVID, the DOE did partner with the University of Wyoming and Ramsey Education to provide some financial literacy curriculum and educational materials to high schools across the state.
Although personal financial management is required to be taught, the DOE does not have a financial literacy web page for administrators and educators with guidance, educational standards, resources, tools, and professional development training to help this successfully occur. It is not clear how Wyoming measures student achievement in financial literacy or how the state monitors local school district implementation of the financial literacy education requirement. It is very likely that the quality and quantity of personal finance education in the state varies greatly from school district to school district.
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