Gratitude for the effort of the entire team
NGPF’s Super Bowl (we’re calling it Mission 2030) means all U.S. high school students are guaranteed to take a standalone personal finance course before graduating.
Students, parents, teachers, education leaders, government affairs professionals, business leaders, financial experts, researchers, think tanks, legislators and community leaders all joined the NGPF to champion this simple, nonpartisan policy in 2025. This year we reached a milestone that was unfathomable just a few years ago: THIRTY STATES NOW REQUIRE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TO TAKE A PERSONAL FINANCIAL COURSE (my dear John Madden voice, Rest in Peace!)
We are so grateful to have you on our team. Thank you for advocating for smart policies for students this year, and always!
Chunk plays: Which states have adopted personal finance graduation requirements by 2025?
Forgive me, football heads who already know this: a chunk play allows a team to make a big win on the field in one play.
2025 was a year when many new states took big steps to support their students with life-changing financial education.
Four new states have adopted standalone personal finance graduation requirements of at least one semester in 2025, all beginning with the graduating high school class of 2030:
- When HB342 was signed into law in March 2025, Kentucky has adopted a one-credit (a full year!) personal finance course as a graduation requirement for all public high school students.
- When HB25-1192 was signed into law in May 2025, Colorado has adopted a requirement that all public high school students take a mandatory course that covers ALL state financial literacy standards in high school.
- When HB27 was signed into law in June 2025, Texas has adopted a half-credit personal finance course as a requirement for high school graduation.
- When HB203 was signed into law in October 2025, Delaware has adopted a half-credit financial literacy course as a requirement for high school graduation.
Fumbles – which states dropped the ball on personal finance in 2025?
It’s 4th and goal, the game is on the line and only one team can win. Hopefully it’s the team advocating for students? Not always.
In the final week of North Dakota’s legislative session this winter, lobbyists for an influential group of superintendents convinced Bismarck lawmakers to water down a bill from a standalone personal finance course to an embedded requirement that would include financial literacy standards in other courses. This is an approach that has been proven not to work, like running a QB Draw from your own end zone.
The watered-down bill was signed into law and celebrated as an easy victory (look, it was supported by the state inspectors!) by legislators and the governor.
Unfortunately, it will do little to help North Dakota students build sustainable financial skills.
This was a tricky endeavor for our mission, but we removed our helmets and dropped to the sidelines to interrogate.
Here’s what we learned:
- We think we’re pretty good, but outsiders like the NGPF (understandably) have much less influence on legislative priorities than, say, a state’s powerful School Superintendents Association. In this case, our underdog mentality should have made us dig deeper by showing more compelling stories, data, relationships, and blueprints for success. We did not respond to that, and we apologize to the students of North Dakota that we were unable to arrange this for you. Another interpretation is that we were simply the wrong quarterback for this particular play. An inside game needs inside players.
- This will not be news to you, but in the press the headline exceeds the article. Additionally, embedded financial education requirements like those in North Dakota have been proven not to help students, but historically they get more positive headlines for governors and state coffers than standalone personal finance requirements. There is less incentive for policymakers to get the details right if the headline will be the same either way. Again, this is an understandable (if a bit frustrating) dynamic. Consider this misleading headline, North Dakota makes personal finance a graduation requirement. The reader’s first reaction will probably be: “NICE!” and then they move on to the next thing in their busy lives. Only by reading the article (or better yet, the butchered bill) can you decipher how weak and ineffective the policy is. Details matter. As you may remember from a certain Al Pacino classic, football is a game of inches. This also applies to policy.
- Governor Doug Burgum was on a public relations tour at the time, claiming he wanted to make North Dakota the “most financially literate state,” rivaling Utah. It was more efficient for the governor’s office to score an easy PR victory than to defend a policy that actually worked for students.
- Side note: Utah has had a very successful year independently Personal finance graduation requirement since 2008.
Sometimes your team just needs to be knocked down to reach its potential in the next game.
In 2024, the New Mexico Senate rejected an amendment to NM House Bill 171 that would have made personal finance a graduation requirement for all NM high school students.
Being on the Senate floor when all this happened was a truly bizarre experience.
One senator claimed that personal finance was already taught in ALL high schools in New Mexico. To back up her claim, she brought a group of high school students to the scene and asked them, “Tell these people: What are some of the amazing personal finance lessons you learned in school?” The students (and mind you, these young women were too). voluntarily attend a legislative hearing…) could not remember a single personal finance lesson from any class.
It didn’t matter. The Senate passed the embedded requirement (much like North Dakota’s above) and HB171 was signed into law shortly thereafter.
Fast forward to the end of 2025, and despite the watered-down outcome of House Bill 171, more than 50% of all high school students in New Mexico are required to take a standalone personal finance course to graduate, NGPF is running free FinCamps across the state and the teachers are excited!
How did that happen? Think New Mexicoa local think tank that advocates smart policies for New Mexico residents has been busy convincing local NM school districts to adopt personal finance as one of their local graduation requirements under HB171. Their ground game works!
Season Outlook – Where will the NGPF advocacy team go in 2026?
Great football teams excel when their offense, defense and special teams units work together in harmony. In 2026, we plan to do the same for financial education.
Offensive: Which new states are planned for 2026?
That leaves 20 states plus DC that don’t have a personal finance graduation requirement. We’ll be a bit offensive and focus on the two to four states that we think are likely to be next to adopt standalone personal finance graduation requirements.
We should keep the list of potential states to ourselves for now. We don’t want the opponents to see our playbook and all that.
Defense – what threatens the movement for effective financial education?
We see three systemic threats to effective financial education in 2026:
- Check the box. States continue to propose “embedded” financial education policies (e.g That of New York NY inspires plan And Massachusetts H4670) which have been proven not to work since the early 2000s.
- A missed AP opportunity. College Board lobbyists are storming the State Boards of Education to argue that their AP Business Course should be able to meet a specific personal finance requirement. It can’t because it doesn’t meet state standards for personal finance. There is only one week of personal finance instruction before the AP exam, and four weeks afterward, when students are more likely to be checked out. If government officials take the College Board’s friendly lobbyists at their word instead of actually grading the AP course, then yes!
- Relapse. The bad news is that the list of states whose educational institutions have ignored state laws and simply encouraged school districts to stick with the status quo is growing. The good news is we don’t think they can get away with it. Between legal challenges, coalition campaigns, bill sponsor activism, and pressure from governors, we are confident we can help state departments enforce what their states signed into law that actually helps students: the standalone personal finance course.
Special teams – what opportunities will arise for NGPF to make smart policies for students?
Sometimes we don’t play offense or defense, we just position ourselves so the ball is kicked to us and then see what we can do with our punches and back hurdles. If you’ve read this far and you’re a Philadelphia Eagles fan, there’s a well-deserved Easter egg for you.
State Boards of Education are beginning to contact the NGPF about shaping their future personal finance policies – or revising their existing policies. Nothing has been finalized yet, so we will also keep these states private for now. Sorry to tease!
In any case, we are looking forward to catching the ball and taking it HOME!
Who’s coming with us to the Super Bowl – ahem, Mission 2030 – in 2026?
Our nation’s students depend on us to get this right! Happy holidays and see you on the advocacy journey in 2026!
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