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Mapped: Personal Finance Education Requirements, by State

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U.S. map with states coloured according to the percentage of students guaranteed to receive personal finance education

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The Percentage of Students Receiving Personal Finance Education

When you graduated from high school, did you know how to create a budget? Did you have an understanding of what stocks and bonds were? Did you know how to do your own taxes?

For many Americans, the answer to these questions is probably a “no”. Only 22.7% of U.S. high school students are guaranteed to receive a personal finance education. While this is up from 16.4% in 2018, this still represents a small fraction of students.

This graphic uses data from Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) to show the percentage of high school students required to take a personal finance course by state.

A Closer Look at State-level Personal Finance Education

A standalone personal finance course was defined as a course that was at least one semester, which is equivalent to 60 consecutive instructional hours. Here’s the percentage of students in each state who have a required (not optional) personal finance course.

State/Territory% of Students Required to Take Personal Finance Course
Mississippi100.0%
Missouri100.0%
Virginia100.0%
Tennessee99.7%
Alabama99.6%
Utah99.6%
Iowa91.3%
North Carolina89.2%
Oklahoma47.1%
New Jersey43.0%
Nebraska42.8%
Kansas40.8%
Wyoming38.3%
Arkansas34.6%
Wisconsin33.5%
South Dakota27.1%
Ohio23.5%
Pennsylvania16.2%
Maine15.6%
Rhode Island14.8%
Connecticut14.7%
Illinois13.9%
Maryland12.5%
North Dakota12.2%
Vermont12.1%
Nevada11.0%
Indiana10.9%
Oregon7.5%
Minnesota6.9%
Montana6.9%
New Hampshire6.0%
Kentucky5.5%
Colorado5.4%
Delaware5.0%
Massachusetts5.0%
West Virginia3.2%
Louisiana2.7%
Washington2.4%
Texas2.2%
New York2.0%
Michigan1.7%
Idaho1.4%
Arizona1.0%
California0.8%
South Carolina0.8%
Alaska0.6%
Florida0.4%
New Mexico0.4%
Georgia0.0%
Hawaii0.0%
Washington, D.C.0.0%

Eight states currently have state-wide requirements for a personal finance course: Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Iowa, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia. Naturally, the level of personal finance education is highest in these states.

Five states have begun the process of implementing a requirement, with Florida being the most populous state yet to guarantee personal finance education for high schoolers. The state previously required schools to offer a personal finance course as an elective, but only 5% of students took the course.

Outside of the guarantee states, only 9.3% of students are required to take a personal finance course. That number drops to 5% for schools that have a high percentage of Black or Brown students, while students eligible for a free or reduced lunch program (i.e. lower income students) also hover at the 5% number.

Why is Personal Financial Education Important?

The majority of Americans believe parents are responsible for teaching their children about personal finance. However, nearly a third of parents say they never talk to their children about finances. Personal finance education at school is one way to help fill that gap.

People who have received a financial education tend to have a higher level of financial literacy. In turn, this can lead to people being less likely to face financial difficulties.

Chart showing that people with low financial literacy are more likely to face financial difficulties, such as being unable to cover an unexpected $2,000 expense, compared to people with high financial literacy

People with low levels of financial literacy were five times more likely to be unable to cover one month of living expenses, when compared to people with high financial literacy. Separate research has found that implementing a state mandate for personal finance education led to improved credit scores and reduced delinquency rates.

Not only that, financial education can play a key role in building wealth. One survey found that only one-third of millionaires averaged a six-figure income over the course of their career. Instead of relying on high salaries, the success of most millionaires came from employing basic personal finance principles: investing early and consistently, avoiding credit card debt, and spending carefully using tools like budgets and coupons.

Expanding Access to Financial Education

Once the in-progress state requirements have been fully implemented, more than a third of U.S. high school students will have guaranteed access to a personal finance course. Momentum is expanding beyond guarantee states, too. There are 48 personal finance bills pending in 18 states according to NGPF’s financial education bill tracker.

Importantly, 88% of surveyed adults support personal finance education mandates—and most wish they had also been required to take a personal finance course themselves.

When we ask the next generation of graduates if they understand how to build a budget, it’s more likely that they will confidently say “yes”.

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Personal Finance

Ranked: The Best U.S. States for Retirement

Getting ready for retirement? See which states score the highest in terms of affordability, quality of life, and health care.

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Ranked: The Best U.S. States for Retirement

What is the most important aspect of retirement planning?

If you said finances, you’re probably right. But have you ever thought about where the best place is to retire? Being strategic about location can make a big impact on your quality of life, and perhaps help your savings go just a bit further.

To help break it down, we’ve visualized data from personal finance platform, WalletHub, which ranked the best U.S. states for retirement as of 2023.

Data and Methodology

WalletHub ranked each state using 47 metrics across three dimensions.

  • Affordability (7 metrics worth 40 points)
  • Quality of Life (22 metrics worth 30 points)
  • Health Care (18 metrics worth 30 points)

Here are some examples of what each dimension measures:

  • Affordability: Cost of living and taxation
  • Quality of Life: Quality of elder-abuse protections and crime rates
  • Health Care: Number of health professionals per capita and life expectancy

Visit the source for the full list of metrics.

The final scores (visualized as the bars in the infographic above) represent each state’s weighted average across all metrics. See below for more comprehensive results.

RankStateScoreAffordability
(rank)
Quality of Life
(rank)
Health Care
(rank)
1Virginia57.6161111
2TFlorida57.49428
2TColorado57.414275
4Wyoming55.65938
5Delaware55.563318
6New Hampshire55.03157
7South Dakota53.625309
8Minnesota53.54021
9Idaho53.2151731
10North Dakota53.0222520
11Utah52.7202426
12North Carolina52.6122335
13Missouri52.4172832
14Pennsylvania52.336312
15TMontana52.1241529
15TSouth Carolina52.143839
17Massachusetts51.94712
18California51.6321910
19Alaska51.326368
20Arizona51.1183525
21Wisconsin50.9341417
22Alabama50.714450
23Ohio49.827837
24Hawaii49.738294
25Nebraska49.3371615
26Iowa48.9351224
27Georgia48.674042
28Michigan48.0291836
29TMaine47.543613
29TNew Mexico47.5214630
31Indiana47.3233140
32TNevada47.2114241
32TTennessee47.224845
34TVermont47.14876
34TConnecticut47.144263
36Kansas46.8303233
37West Virginia46.434349
38Oregon46.1412121
39Texas45.9283734
40Rhode Island45.0393914
41Arkansas44.784944
42Maryland44.6462019
43Washington44.5451323
44Illinois44.3422227
45Louisiana43.9134547
46New York43.7501016
47Oklahoma43.6194743
48Mississippi40.8105048
49New Jersey40.2493422
50Kentucky38.8334146

According to this methodology, Virginia is currently the best state for retirement. Although the Southeastern state does not excel in any one dimension, it scores consistently well across all three to create a very balanced retirement profile.

This gives it a slight advantage over second place Florida, which excels in quality of life and affordability, but falls further behind in terms of health care. Third-placed Colorado is a mirror of Florida, offering excellent health care but a lower quality of life in comparison.

How to Interpret These Results

It’s important to remember that this ranking is purely based on data and the methodology above, and may not be tailored to your individual preferences.

For example, if you believe that health services will be very important during retirement, you may rank Minnesota (#1 in terms of health care) much higher than eighth place.

You may notice that prioritizing one dimension will often come at a trade-off in others. Looking at Minnesota once more, we can see that the state is also one of America’s most expensive.

Looking to retire outside of the U.S.? Check out this graphic on the top 25 countries to retire in.

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