SEATTLE — Washington’s high schools rank near the bottom in budget education, according to a new Wallet Hub report, though state organizations argue work is underway to improve student outcomes in financial literacy by making it a statewide graduation requirement.
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Washington state ranked 43rd, according to the study.
To determine the states with the best high school budgeting education, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across two key dimensions: Financial Education Performance & Access and Financial Education Growth.
Utah, Virginia, and Florida were the top states for high school budgeting education, according to the report.
Nearly all public school districts in Washington offer budget education for students who want to learn skills like saving, credit, taxes, and more.
While some districts do make those courses a requirement to graduate, state Rep. Skyler Rude explains it’s not a statewide mandate. He’s tried for years to get legislation passed to make that happen.
“Every single person entering adult life is going to make financial choices, and that comes in a variety of forms,” he told KOMO News.
As one example, Seattle Public Schools is required to offer personal finance education, which it does through its CTE program.
“Washington’s financial education guidance, administered through OSPI, is largely unfunded, which makes it harder to fully scale this work even as schools and SPS remain committed to it,” an SPS spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to KOMO. “We also have schools that partner with Junior Achievement of Washington, which brings hands-on, experiential learning to students around financial literacy, career readiness, and entrepreneurship. It is a great program, and our teams value the work that JA does in schools.”
A recent Wallet Hub report highlights the need for this education nationwide to help students handle real-life financial challenges, like price spikes, economic fluctuations, and unexpected layoffs.
“It demonstrates that there’s more work to be done,” Rep. Rude added.
The most recent available state data from last year shows that just 3% of Washington’s public school districts did not offer some form of financial education to all students. More than half of schools that did provide the coursework offered it as a for-credit standalone course. In other cases, the work was integrated into social studies and math classes.
Additionally, of the 274 local education agencies that completed an education survey last year, 46% of districts (126) reported that they require financial education as a local graduation requirement, the SBE confirmed.
Rude did not push his legislation in this latest session because the state board of education is now updating graduation requirements for public schools to include financial education.
“We’re looking at how best to do that,” Washington State Board of Education Executive Director Randy Spaulding explained. “One of our most vocal advocates on this has been students.”
The Financial Education Public-Private Partnership (FEPPP) is the state-level organization responsible for advancing student financial literacy, helping schools with professional development and training for this work.
“I think that’s only telling part of the story. It’s not telling all of the story,” FEPPP Executive Director Tracy Godat told KOMO news about the Wallet Hub report. “We are probably more prepared than most states that have been mandated for this because we have been training educators, vetting resources, making sure that things are in place so that districts have the support they need.”
The SBE expects to release its proposal for updated graduation requirements in June.
The group will present the plan to lawmakers in the next session, and if the legislation passes, the graduation requirement would go into effect for the class of 2031.