The National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) gave California an F grade in its 2026 National Report Card on State Efforts to Improve Financial Literacy in High Schools, but projects the state could earn an A grade by 2031.
Released on Oct. 1, the report card details the grade each state has earned for policies that are fully in effect for the graduating Class of 2026, as well as the projected grade the state is expected to earn by 2031 based on policies that have been adopted but not yet implemented.
In California, legislators passed Assembly Bill 2927 in 2024. The bill requires all high schools to offer a personal finance course starting in 2027–28, and that all students take the class beginning with the graduating Class of 2031.
The report card issues grades based on high school graduation requirements, state academic standards for personal finance education, and laws, regulations and guidelines related to how each state delivers personal finance education in its public high schools.
John Pelletier, senior fellow at NEFE, said that when the Class of 2031 graduates, 29 states will require high school students to take a standalone personal finance course, with an estimated 73 percent of public high school students who graduate in 2031 taking a “substantive personal finance course prior to graduation.”
When the first report card was issued in 2013, just three states earned an A grade, representing about 5 percent of students across the country.
“Financial literacy is linked to positive outcomes like wealth accumulation, stock market participation, effective retirement planning and avoiding high-cost alternative financial services. Conversely, poor financial literacy and negative financial behaviors often go hand in hand,” Pelletier said. “High school personal finance education can help alleviate the cycle of poverty that exists in our nation. Requiring all students to take a standalone financial literacy course, regardless of their race, ethnicity or economic status, is an important step our nation can take toward reducing inequality.”
According to a 2025 poll from NEFE, 83 percent of adults in the U.S. believe a semester- or year-long course focused on personal finance should be a high school graduation requirement, and 82 percent said they wish they’d been required to complete a personal finance class while they were in school.
