This won’t come as news to anyone in the movement for personal finance education: when students take a personal finance course in high school, they’re more likely to make better financial decisions in adulthood. So the next question isn’t whether or not schools should teach personal finance. They should. The next question is: what makes personal finance education work best? Recent research gives us some clear answers.

Here are a few factors that make personal finance education work best according to peer-reviewed research:

1. Well-prepared teachers

High-quality professional development that goes beyond sit-and-get, ongoing educator support, and teacher-to-teacher collaboration all make a difference.

This is why NGPF offers interactive, collaborative professional development to educators at no cost. Teachers have completed over 600,000 hours of professional development with NGPF since 2019.

2. Make it a graduation requirement

As peachy as it sounds for students to “vote with their feet” (i.e. take Personal Finance as an elective), the only way to guarantee that ALL students get access is to require Personal Finance for graduation.

Research shows Personal Finance graduation requirements do not reduce graduation rates, so this course is not a barrier to graduation or student choice.

Research also shows that adopting a Personal Finance graduation requirement poses zero incremental costs to school districts to implement.

3. Teach it as a standalone course

This is a no-brainer, but standalone Personal Finance courses (18+ weeks / 60+ hours of instruction solely dedicated to Personal Finance) are 6x more effective than squeezing Personal Finance into an already-packed course like Business or Economics, where only 39% of students receive any "required" financial education.

Thirty states have adopted Personal Finance as a standalone requirement of at least one semester!

The research is clear: financial education works. And with the right training, the right course structure, and the right curriculum, it works even better.

About the Author

Christian Sherrill

Former teacher, forever financial education nerd. As NGPF's Director of Teacher Success, Christian is laser-focused on helping the heroic teachers who fuel NGPF's mission to guarantee all students a life-changing personal finance course. Having paid down over $40k in student loans in the span of 3 years - while living in the Bay Area on an entry level teacher's salary - he's eager to help the next generation avoid financial pitfalls one semester at a time.