Report Methodology

This report is exclusively an update on the Center’s report, 2023 National Report Card on State Efforts to Improve Financial Literacy in High Schools™. It focuses on those states that through laws or regulations currently require, or will require by 2031, that all public high school students graduate having taken a standalone financial literacy course, or its equivalent. As in our previous reports on this topic, these are referred to as Grade A states.

This report starts with the 23 states that had a Grade A in our 2023 report, or were projected to have a Grade A by 2028. It adds to this group six other states that have passed laws that will make these states Grade A states by or before 2031.

This report only includes Grade A state data as of June 30, 2025. Just prior to that date, Delaware’s legislature had overwhelmingly passed a law that remained on the governor’s desk on June 30, 2025.

Thus, when document was finalized, it seemed very likely that Delaware would become the 30th Grade A state when its Class of 2030 graduated—but that was not a certainty and therefore is not reflected in this report.

This report has not updated data for states that in our 2023 report received grades of B, C, D or F, unless their grade was raised to Grade A states as of June 30, 2025.

In addition to Delaware, some of these 21 states (and the District of Columbia) have had legal or regulatory changes since our last report was issued. Some of these state grades may have improved, but such improvement would not increase their grades to a Grade A and thus are not reflected in this report. A larger report, with updated fact sheets for each state, will be issued in 2026. It is likely that some of those Grade B, C, D and F states have had some improvements that will change their grades in this new report.