UPDATE: the 2023 Financial Education Bill Tracker from Next Gen Personal Finance provides daily updates on which state legislatures have introduced financial education bills for grades K-12 throughout 2023.

State legislatures continue to introduce bills in 2022 that would increase access to financial education. In fact, as of January 31st, 18 states have already put forth 32 bills related to personal finance education. To summarize the recent past, the number of states guaranteeing that high school students will complete a one semester course in personal finance has doubled from 5 to 10 in the past three years. 2021 saw Nebraska, Rhode Island and Ohio make that commitment. 

For the complete list of bills introduced in 2022 or carried over from 2021, check out the NGPF FinEd Bill Tracker (to be updated monthly in early part of the year). 

Here are a few highlights: 

• Arizona's HB2278 would provide an alternative mathematics graduation pathway that includes a personal finance course. This is a trend we have seen in several states, many of which provide the option of counting a personal finance course to satisfy a math requirement OR an elective. 
• Hawaii's SB2201 embeds financial literacy into the personal transition plan requirement that all students are required to complete. The personal transition plan is a four year sequence that students complete in high school to prepare them for the "real world." 
• Illinois's two bills would increase the consumer education course to a full year (HB4391) while also setting personal finance teacher certification requirements and allowing personal finance courses to count as a math course for grad. requirements purposes (HB4571). 
• New Jersey's AR41 would rollback the state's standalone personal finance course and asks districts to incorporate personal finance standards in math and social studies. 
• Tennessee currently is one of the ten states that guarantees a one semester personal finance course for high school students. SB2174 would ensure that middle school students (6th to 8th grade) would also take a personal finance course. 
• The state of Washington has two bills: SB5720 would create staff positions in districts staff solely dedicated to student financial literacy education while HB1938 would ensure that all high schools in the state offer a personal finance elective by 2023-24 [currently 36% of students in Washington do not have access to a personal finance elective per NGPF's State of Financial Education report)

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Looking to advocate at your school, your district or your state? Be sure to check out the advocacy tools available on the NGPF site: Why Financial Education?, How To Expand Access and Got Finance? School Search (more than 10,000 schools analyzed)

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.