LONGVIEW — A bill that would make financial education classes a graduation requirement for Washington students didn’t make it through the Legislature this spring, but State Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti hopes for a different outcome next year.
“I’ve yet to meet a single person, any Washingtonian in the state, who believes that they know everything they need to know about financial education,” he said. “What has become clear to me is that we need to ensure at least a foundational baseline that everyone who’s leaving school has.”
A similar law was passed in Oregon in 2023, so Rainier Jr/Sr High School has incorporated the requirements in a new consumer finance class. Some local schools, like Kalama High School, also already offer classes that incorporate financial education.
Proposed requirements
House Bill 1915 was first introduced to the Legislature in January. As it was originally filed, it would require all public school districts to offer financial education and make a half credit of the subject a graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2029.
School districts would be able to choose whether to offer financial education as a stand-alone class or incorporate it into another subject.
The bill passed in the House of Representatives and moved to the Senate, which added an amendment removing the graduation requirement. The House refused to accept the amendment, and the two chambers could not come to an agreement in time to pass the bill.
Pellicciotti said he believes it’s important to at least require schools to offer financial education, even if it doesn’t become a graduation requirement.
“We ask a lot of folks who are 18 years old, but yet we’re not giving them the foundational training of even knowing the difference between a grant and a loan, or the impacts of loans and how that could impact one’s life throughout their career,” he said.
Currently, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction requires high school students to be given access to financial education, but leaves it up to the district how that is offered and whether it is mandatory.
According to OSPI’s current standards, financial education should cover spending and saving, credit and debt, employment and income, investing, risk management and financial decision-making.
In the absence of a universal financial education requirement, students often have to rely on their parents, who are likely not experts themselves, Pellicciotti said.
“No one should have to rely entirely on their parents’ financial education acumen to be able to successful financially and economically today,” he said.
What’s available now?
In Oregon, a bill passed in 2023 added a half credit of financial education and a half credit of higher education and career path skills to the graduation requirements for students beginning with the class of 2027.
The bill states financial education should cover credit scores, investments, budgeting strategies, taxes and building financial wellbeing.
According to a report by the American Public Education Foundation, a nonprofit that supports public education, Oregon is one of 11 states that make financial education a graduation requirement. The report looks at all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
The report gave Washington a “B” grade, meaning it has “above average” financial education standards, for having financial education standards for all grades and for requiring financial education to be offered in high school. In total, 23 states earned a “B” grade on the report.
Only Alaska, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and South Dakota do not require any form of financial education, according to the report.
Rainier Jr/Sr High School was already planning to offer the consumer finance class this year, and the new requirements folded easily into its curriculum, Principal Jeremy Williams said. So far, he has not heard any complaints about it.
“We didn’t make a big deal out of it,” he said.
While financial education is beneficial to students, he said it’s also important to keep in mind that it is a lifelong learning process and people will always encounter things school didn’t prepare them for.
Kalama High School math teacher Traci Stepper makes financial education a focus of her math fundamentals class, which is offered to seniors. In her class, students learn how credit cards and interest rates work, how to file taxes, how to budget and how to plan large purchases like cars and vacations.
“They like it,” she said. “It’s something different.”
Stepper first started offering the class three years ago, taking inspiration from her own experiences and from helping her children, who are now adults, prepare to go out on their own. When she first left home, she didn’t know anything about how investing worked or what interest rate on a credit card meant, she said.
Now, she sees the same knowledge gap in her students. They often see credit cards as a kind of free money, and don’t realize how interest rates can raise their bills if they only make minimum payments each month.
However, her students are responding well to the lessons. She said she had one former student say that she recently paid off her car and was now hoping for a refresher course on credit cards before she applied for one.
