In June 2021, Rhode Island’s Governor signed a law requiring all students to take a personal finance class before graduation. Beginning with the Class of 2024, all students must pass a half-credit or full-credit Personal Finance class. The State of Rhode Island Department of Education believes that adding this class will lower the chance of poverty and ensure “all families can benefit from our economy.” Florida, Nebraska, Ohio, and Rhode Island are now the only states mandating Personal Finance to graduate high school. On average, 5% of students took Personal Finance, which overall started to seem concerning to state governors. As of the graduating class of 2024, these four states have mandated that all students K-12 must take a year of personal finance at some point, in person or virtual. Lincoln High School has also partnered with CCRI, allowing students to receive credits from the community college if they take and pass personal financial and managerial accounting,  introduction to Business, and college accounting. By creating this agreement with CCRI, LHS has pushed students into taking more business classes, such as Personal finance.

East Greenwich High School started to voice the importance of personal finance seven years ago after realizing it could help future students not be set back in credit card debt and student loans. “Senior Charlotte Palmer was one of those students and recently she spoke to the state Council for Elementary and Secondary Education about why Rhode Island should establish financial literacy standards.” (EGNews) This small step ended up being a big move in the education department years later.

Although this new education requirement is only in four states as of now, they hope to expand this requirement throughout the United States. Making sure all students are ready to deal with money when the day comes in the future.