Personal finance becomes the newest ‘adulting’ lesson for high schoolers
May 11, 2025
Teenagers aren’t known for taking the long view with money. But a growing number of high school students are taking classes to learn how to handle their financial future: what a budget is, why saving is important and how to invest.
In March, Kentucky became the latest state to codify financial literacy as a stand-alone class needed for high-schoolers to graduate. That brings the total to 36 states with some form of financial literacy requirement for high school graduation, according to the Council of Economic Education — up from 21 states in 2020.
Theo Bosio, a senior at Forest Hills Northern High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said he appreciated the instruction before launching into the real world. “The biggest thing was the amount of money you need for retirement — it’s millions of dollars,” Bosio said. “The best time to start saving is like right now, when we’re 17 or 18.”
Bosio was a student in Brian Johnson’s financial literacy class, which included a segment on savings accounts such as money market accounts and certificates of deposit. The class led Bosio to ask his father to help set up his own certificate of deposit. Before the CD, Bosio had already saved up between $2,000 and $3,000, and he calculated he could earn more thanks to still-high interest rates.
Lilly Campbell, Bosio’s classmate, also learned the course’s lessons in a hands-on way: She applied for more scholarships than she originally would have after reading about smarter ways to pay for college.
Across the country, teenagers are thinking about their money differently thanks to personal finance instruction — in some cases, as a core subject like English or math.
Sacramento Charter High School hosts a one-day financial wellness event Feb. 19.© Golden 1 Credit Union
“I’ve seen some kids go from feeling no hope for their future to feeling like they can have a good life,” Patrick Kubeny, a Wisconsin teacher, told The Washington Post. He was among those who testified before lawmakers in support of his state’s measure before it passed in December 2023.
Reality check
Americans of all ages are struggling with the affordability crisis affecting cars, student loans, housing and groceries. But advocates of financial literacy hope that teenagers can make better decisions after learning the basics.
For now, most young people still get financial instruction informally. According to a 2023 survey from Pew, less than a quarter of Americans ages 18-29 said they had any instruction in school, compared with half who said they learned from family or friends. That cohort was less likely than Gen X to know how to find a credit report, craft a monthly budget, or handle other basic personal finance tasks.
Even when students pursue classes in school, they’ll find wide variation. California’s stand-alone requirement, for example, won’t start for two more years, but in some of its schools, like Sacramento Charter High School, teachers or career counselors have already launched smaller exercises for students. In February, the school hosted a one-day financial wellness challenge, with students going to different booths to learn the costs of essentials such as transportation, housing, child care and food. Then they had to deduct those costs from a punch card that listed their salary.
Edie Park, who ran the food booth with fellow senior Mariah Bowman, called the exercise a “reality check.” Both noticed how some of their peers underestimated food costs, failed to verify their receipts and overspent at other booths. They now say they have become more intentional with their money as they gear up for college.
Junior Jordan Collins credits the workshop with getting him to boost his savings to his first-ever $1,000, which made him “extremely happy.”
Meanwhile, schools are often drawing on a mix of options for adding personal finance to their curriculums. Some offer it as a stand-alone course, while others combine it with electives such as economics or business. And some curriculum providers, like the nonprofit NextGen Personal Finance, offer flexibility to teachers in how long a course unit runs, or how to tweak digital modules.
Students at Sacramento Charter High School during the event. California will require a stand-alone financial literacy class for high school graduation in two years.© Golden 1 Credit Union
In general, however, classes typically cover basics like cash-flow management, taxes, insurance, paying for college and the importance of investing early. Topics might also include financing a car or mortgage, how credit scores work, or how to open a small business or work in the gig economy.
Other providers of instruction and resources include the Federal Reserve’s regional banks, many of which offer educational resources on economics and personal finance, and the nonprofit Jumpstart Coalition, which works with public- and private-sector partners to bring instruction to schools. Some local credit unions also participate, as was the case with Sacramento Charter High School’s one-day crash course, which Golden 1 Credit Union and Franklin Templeton Investments ran with help from student volunteers.
Adulting is hard
While many students welcome the exposure to financial literacy, an open question is how effective it is. Early studies show that students who have taken such courses earn more grants and scholarships for college, rely less on credit cards, and are less likely to use alternative financial services such as payday loans, said Carly Urban, an economics professor at Montana State University. But when it comes to planning for retirement, there’s little evidence to show the classes lead to higher rates of opening 401(k)s and other investment accounts.
Urban has an additional caveat: Effectiveness of these courses is hard to measure when it comes to financial well-being.
Students with only a high school diploma are “hyperaware of the things that they won’t have because of money,” she said. “Which is realistic, yet very sad at the same time.”
But for teachers like Jennifer Pariseau of Parkside High School in Salisbury, Maryland, the proof is more tangible. She has found that students are eager to apply the math in the class to their real lives. Senior Kaylee Ebersole, for example, opened a Roth IRA — which anyone with earned income can establish regardless of age under a custodial account — while a classmate, senior Reedjina Derisse, persuaded her mother to switch banks for lower fees.
Senior Mark Loovis of Mount St. Joseph High School in Baltimore also opened a Roth IRA this year. He joined the school’s investing club last year after discovering his passion for business and finance.
Senior Bella Berlin, who requested an independent study in personal finance at Barnstable Academy in New Jersey, developed her own business plan as part of her instruction, with the aim of taking a deeper dive before pursuing child development after college. She broached the subject of opening a day-care center to learn the costs of starting and marketing a facility.
Another bonus of these classes is that they spur more conversations with families and friends, some teens say. Juniors Albina Rai and Joice Mukamba, of Winooski High School in Vermont, both cited taxes and insurance as units that piqued their interest outside of investing.
Mukamba, who works after school at McDonald’s, found out she could file her own return — a pleasant surprise for her mother. As for Rai, she offered to help her mother file — a gesture that was politely declined — but the two still talk “a lot about taxes,” she said.