Georgia just became the latest state to need personal finance education
Key takeaways:
- High school students in Georgia will soon have assured access to a personal finance study before they graduate.
- On Thursday, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed SB 220, a bill mandating personal finance courses for high school students.
Beginning in the 2024-2025 school year, all 11th- and 12th-grade students will require to take at least a half-credit class in financial literacy before graduation.
The action “will guarantee that [students] learn financial literacy in our schools, like the essence of good credit and budget appropriately so that they can be better readied for the world outside the classroom,” said Kemp during the signing event.
A growing trend
According to the nonprofit Next Gen Personal Finance, Georgia is the 13th state to require personal finance education for its students, which follows such bills.
It’s the latest in a growing trend of states adding personal finance education. In the previous 12 months, Florida, Nebraska, Ohio, and Rhode Island have enacted similar laws and are executing them for all students.
Once Georgia’s bill is enforced, it will suggest that more than 35% of students in the U.S. will have access to a financial literacy course. According to Next Gen Personal Finance, that’s almost double the share of students that had access to such coursework in 2018.