The state requires personal finance instruction as a graduation requirement that is equal to a one-semester, half-year course (minimum of 60 hours of personal finance instruction in an academic year).
OUR CENTER NOW PROJECTS THAT IN 2031:
This means that by 2031, the vast majority of students in public high schools in America will have taken a robust personal finance course prior to graduation.
Why is this rapid change happening across the nation? This is not very surprising given the results of a March 2025 poll of adults released by the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE). Some highlights of this poll include the following:
These legal and regulatory changes may be happening quickly in so many states because it is an incredibly popular public policy initiative with the voting public.
At the time our last report was issued in 2023, approximately 1.7 million students attended public high schools in grade A states. Our Center now projects that in 2031, approximately 11.4 million students will be attending public high schools in Grade A states, or nearly 3 out of every 4 public high school students. The number of students learning personal finance will have increased 572 percent in eight years!
Conversely, 27 percent of public high school students will live in states that are less than Grade A. Will the students in these states be less able to cope with the financial complexities of life in America? That question confronts policy makers in the remaining 21 states and the District of Columbia. These policy makers need to assess whether their state’s public high school students are going to be left behind and be at a material disadvantage with the supra majority of their peers nationally.
The personal finance education momentum has been building in part due to the existence of national financial literacy education standards and the availability of free, high quality, online curricular resources offered by state departments of education and by many other organizations, often nonprofits.
*Year of Center for Financial Literacy’s National High School Report Card+Includes 50 states and the District of Columbia
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, and National Center for Education Statistics “Digest of Education Statistics, 2020” and “Digest for Education Statistics, 2023.” Actual enrollment data is used for 2007, 2008, 2013, 2015, and 2017. Actual enrollment data from 2022 is used for 2023, 2025 and 2031 Projected. Data from Table 203.30 Public school enrollment in grades 9 through 12. Total enrollment for the US in 2022 was 15,547,146.
Projections for 2026 to 2031 based on current laws and regulations.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, and National Center for Education Statistics “Digest of Education Statistics, 2020” and “Digest for Education Statistics, 2023.” Actual enrollment data is used for 2007 to 2022. Actual enrollment data from 2022 is used for 2023 to 2031 Projected. Data from Table 203.30 Public school enrollment in grades 9 through 12. Total enrollment for the US in 2022 was 15,547,146.
Since our last report was issued on December 1, 2023, six states have passed legislation that will change their projected public policy to a Grade A. For the projected Class of 2028, in our prior report, two of those states were Grade B, three were Grade C and one was a Grade F.
In the Appendix to this report, we have summaries of the legislative changes that have occurred in these six states that has caused their projected grades to increase to a Grade A.
IntroductionReport MethodologyGrade A States: An Updated ProjectionSize MattersTeacher Training Is CriticalView the 2025 MapView the Original 2023 National Report Card