Current State
Financial education is a massive societal endeavor, with state K-12 requirements serving as a pillar for providing students with access to quality instruction. Partners at all stages of legislation and implementation are pivotal to successfully fulfilling the intent of these K-12 financial education requirements. While publicprivate partnerships (PPPs) are more common in helping to implement legislation, NEFE’s definition of partnerships expands on PPPs to include two or more people/organizations sharing resources and working together toward a common goal. Local and national partners include financial education advocates (individuals and organizations), teachers, policymakers, lobbyists, workforce development programs, government agencies, postsecondary education institutions, educational nonprofits, financial institutions and the private sector. Most research conducted on educational PPPs sits outside financial education models; however, outcomes show promise of being more cost effective while improving the quality of general education, especially for underserved populations ( The World Bank , Brookings Institution).
Partnership and collaboration are crucial to each phase of the process, from building support for legislation to successfully implementing statewide financial education requirements, for several key reasons.
Partnership and collaboration are crucial to each phase of the process, from building support for legislation to successfully implementing statewide financial education requirements, for several key reasons.
LEGISLATIVE SUPPORT: Various stakeholders collectively advocating for financial education commonly influence requirements. Most states NEFE interviewed discussed a true champion for financial education, often an elected official who worked with local advocacy organizations to get the legislation supported and signed.
FUNDING: The majority of financial education requirement legislation doesn’t allocate long-term, sustainable funding—if any is provided at all. Despite legislative backing, the lack of funding means most states rely on partner organizations to supply training, resources and fundraising efforts to cover costs of statewide implementation. Financial support tends to come from the private and/or philanthropic sectors, emphasizing how partnerships can help secure necessary resources.
TEACHER TRAINING: One of the greatest efforts in implementing financial education legislation is training educators in personal finance. In most states, external partnerships provide training, develop resources and offer ongoing professional development for educators, proving how pivotal partnerships can be.
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT: Statewide collaborations have led to the creation of curricula and teacher training programs. Additional local and national partners often offer teacher certifications and free comprehensive curricula.
ONGOING EVALUATION AND IMPROVEMENT: Partnerships facilitate ongoing evaluation and adaptation of programs, ensuring they meet the evolving needs of students and educators. Partners can help satisfy mandatory assessments by embedding pre- and post-tests within teacher training or through student evaluations.
State Examples
Existing successful partnerships focused on K-12 financial education offer prime examples of how to effectively advance K-12 financial education requirements through collaboration. This section highlights several partnerships but is not comprehensive in illustrating the great work underway across the country.
UTAH: The state graduation requirement to take General Financial Literacy (GFL) was in place for six years before Utah made two key adjustments via legislation. In 2014, the state passed Senate Bill 40, which implemented an endorsement required for teachers to teach the course and a new end-of-course assessment mandatory for all students. Using three years of data from this assessment, as well as surveys conducted with teachers and past graduates, Utah published a report through the state auditor’s office analyzing the first 10 years of the GFL requirement. Though not a landscape assessment by name, this report displays what such an assessment can look like for other states. This report details how teachers felt overwhelmed by the amount of financial education resources available. The state responded by creating a website of curated resources and lesson plans for teachers, illustrating how evaluation can help support educators.
UTAH (UTAH COUNCIL ON FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC EDUCATION [UCFEE]):
The Utah State Legislature established the UCFEE, overseen by the Utah Office of State Treasurer, to ensure continuous improvement of the state’s long-standing financial education requirement. The council consists of more than 50 private and public partners who share a common mission and vision to improve the financial capability of Utah’s citizens. The UCFEE advocates for strengthening financial education requirements and helps to identify and support programs that benefit students, families and individuals toward capability, stability and upward mobility. The UCFEE is an effective example of having a neutral, singular entity responsible for coordinating, promoting and facilitating collaboration among partners to streamline work and avoid redundancies. One interviewee reflected that “the council allows partners to effectively communicate and stay focused on the evolution of financial education requirement implementation.”
NORTH CAROLINA (North Carolina Council on Economic Education [NCCEE]):
Following the state’s passage of a financial education requirement in 2019, North Carolina utilized a public-private partnership as part of its implementation and funding efforts. The legislation allocated $1 million over the four years of implementation, which was to be matched by private contributions through the fundraising efforts of the NCCEE. The legislation designated the NCCEE to provide teachers with professional development, and with the assistance of other partners, the organization has since provided economic and personal finance professional development to thousands of educators. Partners in the state continue to offer ongoing, innovative training opportunities for teachers. North Carolina demonstrated how a financial education requirement can become much stronger and more effective through private and community partnerships.
Other Partnership Models
FINED50 COALITION:
A national model of an effective partnership, FinEd50 is a coalition committed to improving access to quality financial education for every student in the country through advocacy and teacher training efforts. Partners include nonprofit organizations, researchers, corporate partners and professional organizations that advocate for quality financial education and provide technical assistance on best practices, funding, innovation and evaluation. FinEd50, spearheaded by the Visa Corporation and cofounded with the Council for Economic Education, highlights a successful collaboration through the private sector for the greater public good.
WASHINGTON FINANCIAL EDUCATION PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP: The FEPPP, established in Washington state, brings together the public and private sectors to provide quality financial education for public school students. In lieu of a traditional financial education requirement, the legislation created a formal public-private partnership, which includes legislators, state government agencies, teachers, financial institutions and school administrators, and provides state-allocated dollars to support the program and award
“The diverse cultural landscape of Washington state is reflected in our student body, making it imperative to engage partners who understand and can address the unique needs of all students and communities. NEFE prioritizes identifying high-quality, diverse resources and materials. Strong partnerships expand our opportunities to provide professional development by connecting financial education to social and emotional learning and trauma-informed approaches. Our unique approach to partnerships, whether they be nonprofit, for-profit, state or federal programs, gives us a strong advantage in expanding financial education.
- TRACY GODAT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FEPPP
grants to school districts. Tracy Godat, FEPPP’s Executive Director, shared, “The diverse cultural landscape of Washington state is reflected in our student body, making it imperative to engage partners who understand and can address the unique needs of all students and communities. NEFE prioritizes identifying high-quality, diverse resources and materials. Strong partnerships expand our opportunities to provide professional development by connecting financial education to social and emotional learning and trauma-informed approaches. Our unique approach to partnerships, whether they be nonprofit, for-profit, state or federal programs, gives us a strong advantage in expanding financial education.” The FEPPP provides teachers with financial education training and quality resources and is an award-winning example of a partnership moving efforts forward in a state that currently does not have a legislative requirement.
Challenges and Opportunities
There are many opportunities to learn about successful partnerships from early adopters of statewide financial education, particularly those currently in the implementation phase. States still considering a requirement and states that are soon to adopt legislation can potentially anticipate certain challenges and embrace opportunities for improving K-12 financial education. Future states can proactively leverage and strengthen the use of partnerships when implementing legislation.
SUSTAINABILITY
NEFE research found that partnerships were often rooted in relationships between individuals, raising questions about the sustainability of partnerships and funding. How does the field plan for leadership changes or relationship shifts within government, organizations and institutions? North Carolina offers an example of scaffolding sustainability for partnerships in its K-12 financial education requirement. When the bill was passed in 2019, it codified the NCCEE as a nonprofit partner. This approach has pros and cons, but the relationship will remain intact with leadership and staff transitions. This is a good example of partnerships being formalized and a step toward sustainability. An opportunity exists to intentionally and strategically formalize the sustainability of partnerships through legislation and/or assigning a neutral entity, like the NCCEE, to ensure collaboration and accountability continues.
The lack of funding presents additional sustainability challenges. Insufficient funding requires partners to fundraise to cover the cost of teacher training and resources and similarly identify partners who are willing to provide grants or donations to effectively implement legislation. Grant priorities shift, philanthropic funding gets exhausted, competing initiatives emerge and federal aid ends, so a more sustainable source of funding must be found. While a statewide financial education requirement is a massive win, the bar should be raised. Other K-12 educational mandated courses and programs receive funding. Financial education should not be the exception. Currently, of the 26 states with a financial education requirement, the legislation in 21 states does not include funding. California, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon provide some funding per legislation. An opportunity exists to be creative in funding streams and learn from other fields who have successfully walked this path.
Financial education is an essential pillar of learning and, therefore, a public good. As a partner in this work, the federal government is not solely responsible for financially educating Americans. The federal government’s role is “developing and implementing policy, encouraging research, and developing educational resources”(U.S. Department of the Treasury). Annually and at the time of this writing, the federal government allocates more than $300 million for financial literacy and education programs, distributed among many federal agencies. Opportunities exist to utilize and expand the critical work of these federal agencies and for the federally legislated Financial Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC) to explore funding challenges and partnership opportunities for financial education. Additionally, exploring allocated funding for adjacent fields presents opportunities as well. For example, several organizations are exploring how best to encourage financial education activities for Community Reinvestment Act credit. Despite local and state control of education, braiding funding streams from federal resources with local funding could leverage the work in state financial education implementation efforts.
GROWING FINANCIAL EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS
An opportunity exists to expand the partnership network to ensure the long-term success of financial education requirements. Other sectors have learned to advance implementation and impact through partnerships. Collaborations between secondary and postsecondary education institutions and creative alignments with the workforce industry present several opportunities for supporting financial education implementation. Most states have existing statewide dual or concurrent enrollment initiatives—programs that create pathways for high school students to take college courses that count as high school and college
credit. Embedding financial education into dual enrollment courses creatively fulfills financial education requirements and provides access to non-mandated financial education for high school and postsecondary students. Additionally, building financial education into postsecondary teacher education credentialing and degree programs provides a solid foundation for financial education teacher preparedness while offering beneficial knowledge to future educators.
Partnering with workforce development programs offers alternative access touchpoints for K-12 students through early exposure, and later through apprenticeships, work-based learning programs, and career and technical education. Workforce and business leaders often appreciate the value of financial education and have demonstrated a willingness to advocate for embedding financial education curricula into existing secondary/postsecondary-to-workforce partnerships. In some states, the business sector offers volunteer or mentoring time to students to further advance their financial education knowledge.
Opportunities also exist for partnerships to be more inclusive, diverse and equitable. During interviews, NEFE asked about inclusive and equitable considerations at each point of the implementation phase of financial education requirements. While building equitable approaches for learners was often a priority, there was an overall lack of consistency and consensus on how to embed equity with intentionality and impact at various stages. One interviewer clarified, “These [equity considerations] aren’t so much newer as much as they are recognized more.” Ensuring access in rural and urban areas was a common theme as well as considerations across gender, ethnicity, race and socioeconomic identities. A few states have attempted to address equity considerations in financial content and curricula by focusing on inclusive language and examples. Other states discussed a focus on delivery, with the intention to hire and train instructors who reflect the student population. As referenced earlier, Washington state’s alternative to a financial education requirement partnership, the FEPPP, models an example of curating inclusive financial education materials by assessing offerings through a Screening for Biased Content in Instructional Materials guide. They have built a library of screened materials for various demographic groups from program providers across the country. In Washington, D.C., public schools, the federal district currently does not have a financial education requirement but offers another example of prioritizing equity. Its financial literacy standards incorporate systemic considerations and acknowledge the broader economic and social factors that impact financial stability and access.
As a national convener, catalyst and connector across the field, NEFE is committed to elevating inclusive and equitable approaches and connecting partners that offer actionable, research-informed methods to better support all students.
There have long been partners in financial education who, from their inception, have designed researchinformed, identity-conscious approaches to shape equitable and inclusive curriculum and teaching methodologies. These partners include the Society for Financial Education & Professional Development (SFEPD), The Financial Literacy Youth (FLY) Initiative, PocketsChange, Qualitas of Life, and Equity Now, LLC. These organizations are a few examples of trailblazers who model effective approaches that can be adapted and scaled to serve diverse learners’ needs. Known and emerging practices must be embedded in teacher training and classroom resources to best serve each student. As a national convener, catalyst and connector across the field, NEFE is committed to elevating inclusive and equitable approaches and connecting partners that offer actionable, research-informed methods to better support all students.
Recommendations
Full utilization and expansion of financial education partnerships can improve the access, quality and impact of financial education and, ultimately, the nation’s financial wellness. The following recommendations are presented for collaborative discussions, future partnerships and legislative implementation considerations.
Utilize partnerships throughout each phase of financial education legislation and implementation.
Formalize and sustain financial education partnerships for the long term. Consider codifying partnerships into legislation or appointing a neutral partner to oversee collaboration and accountability.
Secure various sustainable funding streams for financial education. The private sector can often be helpful for securing or providing additional funds. For example, “banks activities involving financial capability, financial literacy and financial education may be eligible for positive consideration under the Community Reinvestment Act ” (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency).
Engage postsecondary and workforce partners in the K-12 financial education requirement conversation. Education-to-workforce pipelines are flourishing across the nation and offer creative and alternative models for financial education access and impact.
Advocate for education credentials and degrees to include financial education training as part of the required credential requirements to proactively address the financially educated trained teacher shortage. Personal finance courses should be offered as an elective—at the very least—for those being trained to be high school educators, particularly in business education, mathematics, social studies, family and consumer science, and career and technical education.
Teach financial education advocates about diversity, equity and inclusion best practices to advance cultural competency and fluency in curriculum and teaching methodologies. Proactively partner with educators and experts doing promising work that centers equity and inclusion in financial education.
Summary
Effectively educating students about finances is complicated, yet it has the potential for transformative, lifelong impact. The Personal Finance Ecosystem is nuanced and individualized. However, the financial education field is naturally collaborative and embraces partnerships for greater collective impact. Proactively utilizing intentional partnerships in the financial education requirement process will result in a better ecosystem to educate every student. NEFE encourages all advocates involved in policy implementation to work together to achieve greater collective impact. © 2025 National Endowment for Financial Education® (NEFE®)
