Tennessee tops the list of U.S. states that provide the best financial education for its residents, according to a new report by financial-services company OneMain Financial. More than 99% of students at public high schools in Tennessee have what’s known as “gold-access” education, attending a school where they are required to take a personal-finance course in order to graduate.
“‘We think that understanding budgeting, saving, loans and credit cards as well as credit scores can set people up for a lifetime of financial well-being.’” Roughly two dozen states require students to learn about personal finance, either in a dedicated course or integrated into other subjects, in order to graduate from high school, according to the Council for Economic Education‘s Survey of the States report. A few states, including Florida, passed bills in the summer of 2022 making personal-finance courses an individual requirement.
Financial-literacy levels have been “stubbornly resistant to progress,” according to analysts at the Milken Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Santa Monica, Calif. “This result is particularly worrying for young people, who are likely to face greater financial challenges than previous generations,” researchers concluded in a 2021 report.Over the past two years, the pandemic pushed many states to consider requiring financial-literacy education in schools.