California to Require High School Students to Take Personal Finance Class Before Graduating

By the 2030–2031 academic year, California public high school students will be required to pass a financial literacy class in order to graduate.

An employee of a bank counts U.S. dollar notes at a branch in Hanoi, Vietnam, on May 16, 2016. Kham/Reuters

California is now the 26th U.S. state to add financial literacy instruction as a high school graduation requirement.

Assembly Bill 2927, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom on June 29, funds single-semester personal finance courses for all public high schools at the start of the 2027–2028 academic year, with the graduation requirement taking effect for 2030–2031 graduates, according to a California Department of Education statement.