Highschool college students in Georgia will quickly have assured entry to a personal finance course earlier than they graduate.
On Thursday, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed into regulation SB 220, a invoice requiring personal finance lessons for highschool college students. Beginning in the 2024-2025 college 12 months, all Eleventh- and Twelfth-grade college students will want to take a minimum of a half-credit course in monetary literacy earlier than commencement.
The measure “will ensure that [students] learn financial literacy in our schools, like the importance of good credit and how to budget properly so that they can be better prepared for the world beyond the classroom,” stated Kemp throughout the signing occasion.
A rising pattern
Georgia is the thirteenth state to mandate personal finance education for its college students, in accordance to nonprofit Subsequent Gen Personal Finance, which tracks such payments.
It is the latest in a rising pattern of states including personal finance education. In the final 12 months, Florida, Nebraska, Ohio and Rhode Island have handed comparable legal guidelines and are in the means of implementing them for all college students.
As soon as Georgia’s invoice is carried out, it would imply that greater than 35% of scholars in the U.S. could have entry to a monetary literacy class. That is greater than double the share of scholars that had entry to such coursework in 2018, in accordance to Subsequent Gen Personal Finance.
Having legal guidelines requiring personal finance education are essential to guarantee college students have equal alternatives. There are excessive faculties that provide personal finance programs in states with out mandates, however entry is not equal, in accordance to a current report from the nonprofit.
Solely 10% of scholars in states with out assured entry to personal finance can take such a course. That share drops to 1 in 20 in faculties the place 75% of scholars are nonwhite or obtain free and decreased lunch.
What state could also be subsequent
There are nonetheless a couple of states with pending laws that could be handed later in the 12 months.
South Carolina, for instance, has a invoice at the moment in convention committee. Now that Georgia’s laws has grow to be regulation, South Carolina is the solely state in the Southeast that doesn’t have mandated personal finance coursework, in accordance to Tim Ranzetta, co-founder of Subsequent Gen Personal Finance.