Gaps in access remain for students according to new report
from Next Gen Personal Finance
BURLINGAME, Calif., April 16,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The number of states
guaranteeing a Personal Finance course to high school students grew
from 17 to 25 in the last year. The new 2024 State of
Financial Education Report from nonprofit Next Gen Personal Finance
and researchers at Montana State
University outlines what that means for the future of
financial education and where glaring gaps in access remain.
The number of states guaranteeing a
personal finance course to high school students grew from 17 to 25
in the last year.
In 2023, eight new states (Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, West
Virginia, Wisconsin)
adopted a Personal Finance course guarantee.
Once personal finance graduation requirements are fully
implemented in the 25 U.S. states with this policy in place, by
2030, 53.3% of U.S. high school students will be guaranteed to take
a Personal Finance course. Currently, 26.3% of U.S. public high
school students are guaranteed to take a Personal Finance
course.
"This doubling of access to financial education by 2030 shows a
tipping point in the growing movement to ensure the next generation
goes into adulthood with a foundation of personal finance knowledge
that will benefit them for the rest of their lives," said
Tim Ranzetta, co-founder of
NGPF.
Research has clearly demonstrated that a Personal Finance
course improves long-term financial decision-making and positively
impacts student debt decisions and credit scores, helps graduates
avoid predatory lenders, helps to increase savings rates among
teachers, and even generates positive spillover effects on
parents.
A recent report from Tyton Partners found that taking a
one-semester course in personal finance results in an average
per-student lifetime benefit of approximately $100,000. The report also found the cost of
implementing a standalone course can be kept low given the
availability of high-quality curricular resources and teacher
professional development made available by providers at no or
minimal cost.
While about one in four students now have guaranteed access to a
Personal Finance course, the majority (68.8%) only have
access to an elective course or embedded instruction.
Access to personal finance education is still limited and
inequitable. Outside of the states that guarantee the course, the
statistics haven't changed much from 2022. In those states, only
one in 10 high school students are guaranteed to take a Personal
Finance course prior to graduation.
High school students in rural locales are more than three times
as likely to take a Personal Finance course than students attending
schools in urban locales.
High schools in which greater than than 75% of students are
Black or Hispanic are half as likely to guarantee a Personal
Finance course as schools in which fewer than 25% of students are
Black or Hispanic.
In schools where over 75% of the student population is eligible
for Free & Reduced-Price Lunch, just 4.6% of high school
students are guaranteed to take a Personal Finance course of at
least one semester.
The report also includes data on how individual states stack up
as well as insights into implementation in three states with the
guarantee: Nebraska, North Carolina, and Utah.
Every school year since 2017-18, NGPF has released this State of
Financial Education Report by reviewing individual course catalogs
from U.S. public high schools. The 2024 report was conducted in
collaboration with Dr. Carly Urban,
a global leader in financial education research at Montana State University.
To learn more about the state of financial education in the
U.S., join Dr. Carly Urban, Economic
Professor at Montana State University
as she discusses the findings of the 2024 State of Financial
Education Report on Thursday, April
18 at 4:00pm PT via Zoom.
Register here.
About Next Gen Personal Finance
Next Gen Personal
Finance (NGPF) is a nonprofit committed to guaranteeing that all
high school students receive a personal finance course prior to
graduating. NGPF has become the number one source for nearly
100,000 educators looking for high-quality, engaging personal
finance curriculum to equip students with the skills they need to
thrive in the future. NGPF invests in teacher professional
development with live Virtual Professional Development, 10
Certification Courses, and 40+ asynchronous On-Demand modules. NGPF
has been recognized by Common Sense Education as a "Top Website for
Teachers to Find Lesson Plans" and "Best Business and Finance
Games" and also named NGPF a "Selection for Learning." Visit
ngpf.org for more.
MEDIA CONTACT
Tim Ranzetta
NGPF Mission 2030 Fund/
Next Gen Personal Finance
tim@ngpfmission2030.org
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SOURCE Next Gen Personal Finance