Increase Access to Financial Education

Providing youth with early access to financial education helps young people to develop money management knowledge and skills, acquire more experiences with personal finance and develop effective financial habits.  States can provide early financial education by adjusting state education standards, curriculum and courses.  Professional development and training around teaching economics and personal finance will help boost teacher and school capacity to educate youth.  In order to assist and advise states on promoting and implementing policies for financial literacy, states should consider developing a council, team, or office to address the needs of their residents.  Financial literacy campaigns can also generate awareness and support.  Some policies that increase access to financial education include:

• Integrate financial education into state standards and school curriculum.  It is important that financial education begin before students enter or exit high school.  To improve access to financial literacy, states are requiring financial education to be incorporated into the public school curricula to provide basic information and core skills for financial stability, including: budgeting, savings, debt management, use of bank services, and financial negotiations.  According to the Council for Economic Education’s Survey of the States, economic education is currently included in K-12 standards in all states and is required to be implemented by school districts in 40 states.  Twenty-five states offer a high school course in personal finance, 22 states require an economics course to be taken, and 16 states require student financial literacy testing.  Tennessee is one of the few states that require both economic and personal finance education to be included in K-12 state standards and for standards to be implemented by districts, as well as through a required high school course and test.[1] 
• Provide teacher training and professional development.  As states adopt financial education as a requirement in their K-12 system, states should build teacher capacity.  The Pennsylvania Governor’s Institute on Financial Education offers training institutes on how to integrate financial education into existing courses.[2] Another successful example in Pennsylvania is the partnership between the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Branch and the Jump$tart Coalition which has provided professional development and financial education resources to over 500 teachers across Pennsylvania. 
• Require students to complete a personal finance course to graduate from high school.  Research by Bernheim, Garret, and Maki on the long-term effects of financial education in the U.S. demonstrates that “exposure to financial education in high schools elevates the rates at which individuals save and accumulate wealth during their adult lives.[3]  Thirteen states requires students to complete a personal finance course to graduate from high school; these states include: Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.[4]
• Establish a state financial literacy council, task force, or office of financial education.  The Financial Literacy Council Establishment Act of 2008 helped to establish the District of Columbia Financial Literacy Council and to provide for the financial education of the students of the District of Columbia Public Schools.[5] In Pennsylvania the governor’s office created the Office of Financial Education in 2004.  The office worked to help improve access to financial education programs for adults and children by developing a clearinghouse of financial education materials, integrating financial education into K-12 curricula, expanding community-based financial education and counseling, helping businesses provide financial education to employees and encouraging professionals to volunteer in financial literacy efforts.[6]

• Support public awareness campaigns that create a demand for financial education.  While it is essential to teach financial education early, it is also crucial to teach parents how to discuss finances with their children and how to model good spending behavior.  Providing resources on talking to young people about finances is another important step.  The U.S. Department of Treasury developed the Financial Literacy and Education Commission, which is a government sponsored awareness campaign that can be promoted and supported by states.[7]