Personal finance is overtaking economics in the classroom.
Thirty-nine states now require a personal-finance course to graduate high school, with four adding the mandate since 2024. That compares with 22 states that ask students to take economics, four less than in 2024, according to a forthcoming report by the Council for Economic Education.
Texas, California and Indiana replaced their stand-alone economics requirements with personal-finance requirements, according to the report.
In a world of limited resources, state education departments are giving priority to the practical over the conceptual. The shift also extends to an emphasis on shop classes , as blue-collar jobs become more popular and white-collar hiring slows.
Financial literacy was often part of the home-economics courses taught in earlier eras. These days, students are having to make difficult financial decisions just as they step into the real world. Many young people are choosing to work for themselves. Others are having to navigate financial temptations such as the proliferation of sports betting.
What’s more, a student-debt burden that has swelled to $1.7 trillion, weighing on generations of borrowers , has high-schoolers thinking hard about how much to borrow for college.
At Brooklyn Preparatory High School last week, Diana Isern asked a group of about 20 teens in her personal-finance class to research their prospective colleges and compare price tags and graduate earnings data.
The students, most of them juniors and seniors, put their total cost of the college, minus any scholarships or tuition discounts, into a student-loan payment calculator and set it to a 6% interest rate. Estimated monthly payments popped up on laptops throughout the classroom, ranging from $300 to over $1,700.
Isern asked them to add that number to their budget tracker, a spreadsheet she made that includes how much they expect to make in their future careers and what their expenses might be, including a breakdown of what their pay stubs are likely to look like depending on which state they decide to live in.
Yeilyn Espinosa, a 17-year-old student who wants to major in finance in college, estimated she will have to pay $333 a month after she graduates from Connecticut College, where she was accepted. Espinosa said she rearranged her schedule to prioritize Isern’s class.
She’s not looking forward to the economics class she has to take later this year, which is also a graduation requirement at Brooklyn Prep. “A lot of people say that it’s really hard,” Espinosa said.
New York state has an economics requirement and will mandate personal finance for high-schoolers starting in the fall. Isern has been teaching the class as an elective for six years. It also focuses on topics such as investing, taxes and real estate.
“Every single person says the exact same thing, no matter the age or the background,” Isern said. “They all say, ‘I wish I had that in high school.’ ”
The group now known as the Council for Economic Education started in 1949 to train teachers and integrate economic education in schools. Many researchers believe economics helps make students more civically engaged. After the 2007-09 recession dealt a financial blow to many American families, personal-finance education gained momentum. The number of states requiring personal-finance courses for high schools has jumped in the past few years.
“There are so many things in economics, whether it be macro or micro, that are fascinating, interesting, and yes they help you understand better how markets work,” said John Pelletier , director of the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College in Vermont. “I frankly don’t think they’re going to be as impactful on someone’s life as understanding what a credit score is, what are the behaviors to maximize your credit score so you can reduce the cost of credit on your credit card, your auto loans and leases.”
People who had received mandatory financial education in high school were significantly more likely to make advantageous financial decisions during the pandemic compared to those who hadn’t, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That included paying down high-cost credit-card debt or refinancing mortgages to lower rates.
There is no mandated training to teach personal finance, but Pelletier runs a free course. About a quarter of the teachers who enroll recently found out that they will have to teach the class, he said.
Many personal-finance classes begin as electives, often spearheaded by one passionate teacher who builds their own curriculum.
“I always felt like that was a gap in our educational system,” said Scott Seavers, who 20 years ago asked if he could teach a personal-finance class at Columbus North High School in Indiana.
In 2023, the state required all high-school students to complete a one-semester personal-finance course to graduate. A year later, Indiana dropped its economics requirement.
According to Courtney Bearsch, chief communications officer at the Indiana Department of Education, the state decided it is necessary for all students to focus on the application of real-world financial principles, regardless of their future career path. A student who plans to go to college to study business, for example, can choose to take an economics course to prepare.
Seavers said some of his former students call him after they have graduated college and ask if he can help them set up their 401(k)s. He said he recently helped one negotiate her first car deal.
