2021 State
of Financial
Education Report
Who Has Access to Financial Education in America Today?

Who Has Access to Financial Education in America Today?

In the 2020-2021 school year, nearly 7 out of 10 students across U.S. high schools had access to a standalone Personal Finance course. 2.4M (1 in 5 U.S. high school students) were guaranteed to take the course prior to graduation

GOLD STANDARD (NATIONWIDE)

In public U.S High schools, 1 in 5 students were guaranteed to take a standalone Personal Finance course prior to graduation.

GOLD STANDARD (OUTSIDE GUARANTEE STATES)

In public U.S High schools, 1 in 9 students were guaranteed to take a standalone Personal Finance course prior to graduation.

STATE POLICY IMPACTS

Currently, 7 states have or are implementing statewide guarantees for a standalone Personal Finance course for all high school students. North Carolina and Mississippi are currently implementing.

NATIONWIDE ACCESS (GOLD + SILVER STANDARD)

In public U.S High schools, 7 in 10 students have access to or are guaranteed to take a standalone Personal Finance course prior to graduation.

HOW STATES ARE GUARANTEEING PERSONAL FINANCE FOR THEIR STUDENTS:

MISSISSIPPI
MISSISSIPPI

In 2018, the Mississippi Department of Education created a 1-year College & Career Readiness (CCR) Course for the entering freshman class of the 2018-2019 school year. The course combines one semester of career exploration and college transition preparation with one semester of Personal Finance. The Class of 2022 will be the first graduating class with the CCR course on all of their transcripts.

North Carolina
NORTH CAROLINA

Signed in 2018, North Carolina’s legislation echoes neighboring state Virginia’s, by which all students take one semester of Economics and one semester of Personal Finance. All North Carolina high school students, beginning with the graduating class of 2024, will take a 1-year Economics and Personal Finance (EPF) course within the social studies department. Approximately 40% of all North Carolina public high schools added the EPF course to their course catalogs in 2020-2021, with the remainder expected to do so during the 2021-2022 school year.

Who Has Access to Financial Education in America Today?

While 1 in 9 students outside Guarantee States will take a standalone Personal Finance course prior to graduation, this number dips significantly among students in schools with 75%+ Black and Brown students or 75%+ Free and Reduced Lunch eligibility. Students across the country are not getting equitable access to Personal Finance education.

Who Has Access to Financial Education in America Today?

RACIAL EQUITY (OUTSIDE GUARANTEE STATES)

In schools with 75%+ Black and Brown student population, only 1 in 14 students were guaranteed to take a standalone Personal Finance course prior to graduation.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC EQUITY (OUTSIDE GUARANTEE STATES)

In schools with 75%+ Free and Reduced Lunch eligibility, only 1 in 13 students were guaranteed to take a standalone Personal Finance course prior to graduation.
EQUITY BY COMMUNITY SETTING

Gold Standard Access by School Locale (Outside Guarantee States):

Rural 17.4%

of high school students in rural locales were guaranteed to take a standalone Personal Finance course.

Rural 12.1%

of high school students in suburb + town locales were guaranteed to take a standalone Personal Finance course.

Rural 8.6%

of high school students in city locales were guaranteed to take a standalone Personal Finance course.

IMPACT OF INDIVIDUAL LARGE DISTRICTS ON ACCESS FOR STUDENTS OF COLOR

The racial equity data above (1 in 14) includes, among others, one particularly large district (Prince George’s County Schools, Maryland) that committed in 2020 to all its students taking Personal Finance before graduation. Without that district’s representation as Gold Standard in the dataset, the proportion of students attending schools with greater than 75% Black and Brown students would be 1 in 20. This highlights the outsized impact that large districts can have on closing the gaps in equity identified above.

U.S. Public High School Students with Gold Access and Gold + Silver Access

U.S. Public High School Students with Gold Access and Gold + Silver Access

State Gold Silver

99.9%
0.0%

99.6%
0.0%

99.4%
0.0%

98.9%
0.4%

97.3%
0.4%
SHOW MORE

*Mandate States **Transitioning to Mandate state

Note: State percentages may not add up to 100% because schools with no Personal Finance offerings are not reflected

Top 5: States with Top Growth from SY 2019-2020 to SY 2020-2021

  • 2019-2020
  • 2020-2021
State Growth % Change
1.8% 38.8%
37.0%
14.1% 49.0%
34.9%
36.6% 67.5%
30.9%
2.4% 26.7%
24.3%
3.9% 15.0%
11.1%
State Growth % Change
16.7% 39.2%
22.5%
42.7% 61.0%
18.3%
43.9% 61.1%
17.2%
52.6% - 62.0% 62.0%
9.4%
29.6% - 38.4% 38.4%
8.8%
SHOW MORE

*Mandate States **Transitioning to Mandate state

Where do we go from here? The Path(s) to Mission: 2030

JOIN NGPF AS WE ACCELERATE ACCESS TOGETHER

Personal finance teachers and advocates are making historic progress, but we still have work to do to reach Mission: 2030, when all students take a personal finance course before crossing the graduation stage. 

Introducing Mission: 2025, the NGPF community’s basecamp goal of 100% access to personal finance electives by 2025. Launch a personal finance elective for the first time during the 2021-2022 school year, and earn a $1,000 grant (up to $5,000 for multi-HS districts) to help with implementation. Together, we’ll ensure ALL students have access to a standalone personal finance course in high school by 2025, then guarantee all students will take the course before graduation by 2030.

LEARN MORE

METHODOLOGY

  1. The data underlying the report reflects course catalogs from 11,049 high schools serving 11,752,118 high school students nationwide. The most recent NCES data estimates that there are 15,400,000 high school students in the U.S. today. Therefore, this data covers an estimated 76.3% of public high school students in the U.S.
  2. Sources: 77.8% of school level data is from Dr. Carly Urban and her research team’s latest study (2021) at Montana State University. The remaining 22.2% of school level data is from:
    1. teacher-reported, NGPF-vetted update requests on NGPF’s Got Finance? School Search Tool,
    2. the previous year’s research (2019-2020 school year) from Dr. Carly Urban,
    3. data collected as part of NGPF’s grant programs, prior research, and teacher surveys.
    All school level data reflects the most recent data that NGPF currently houses for each school. While 80%+ of the report’s underlying data is from the most recent school year, some school data reflects the 2019-2020 school year or prior (where course catalogs were unavailable for the current school year).
  3. For the purpose of this report, all ‘Gold Standard School’ data includes both current Gold Standard Schools as well as FUTURE Gold Standard Schools. FUTURE Gold Standard Schools are high schools that have proven their intent to guarantee a standalone Personal Finance course for all their students by providing School Board Minutes and additional documentation for NGPF grant programs.
  4. A ‘Guarantee State’ is a state with a statewide, standalone, one semester (+) Personal Finance graduation requirement. Currently, NGPF recognizes 5 states (AL, MO, TN, UT, VA) as ‘Guarantee States’ and 2 states (NC, MS) as future ‘Guarantee States,’ as they have begun to transition schools to new graduation requirements.
  5. Year over Year Growth shows 2019-2020’s total number of students with guaranteed access to a standalone Personal Finance course vs 2020-2021’s total number of students with guaranteed access to a standalone Personal Finance course.
  6. Paths to Mission: 2025 and Mission: 2030 growth models assume:
    1. that Mission: 2025 will be successful in building access to a standalone Personal Finance course of at least one semester for 100% of U.S. school students by 2025,
    2. that the states with the largest percentage of students attending ‘Silver Standard Schools’ in the 2020-2021 school year will approve legislation soonest, with one state adopting a Personal Finance course guarantee each year, and
    3. that grassroots advocacy will guarantee access for an additional:
      1. 100,000 students per year from 2021 to 2023,
      2. 200,000 students per year from 2024 to 2025,
      3. 300,000 students per year from 2026 to 2027,
      4. 400,000 students per year from 2028 to 2029, and
      5. 500,000 students in 2030.
  7. For Mississippi: Despite having no 'Gold Standard Schools' among those with online course catalogs in the 2020-2021 AY, the Mississippi Department of Education provided a list of 150 schools that reported offering the College and Career Readiness course this year. Since the course catalog data do not match this list and no enrollment data was readily available, we decided to maintain consistency in reporting Gold Standard Schools. We expect that most of the Career and College Readiness course guarantees will begin when the graduating class of 2022 are seniors.