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Champlain College Center for Financial Literacy Releases Top 10 States in Personal Finance Education

Utah Tops List for Best Program for High School Students

Burlington, VT (04/12/2018) — Utah is the only state to earn an A+ on the recent report card issued by Champlain College's Center for Financial Literacy.

Utah leads the center's first-ever top 10 list of states in terms of high school personal finance education, released today (April 12) in recognition of Financial Literacy Month.

John Pelletier, director of the Champlain center, says Utah requires that all high school students take a half-year course exclusively dedicated to personal finance topics, and students are required to take an end-of-course assessment examination created and administered by the state.

"Utah clearly has the best program in the nation," says Pelletier. "They require educators to be trained in teaching personal finance, and they provide teachers with resources and professional development opportunities. General financial literacy is a funded mandate in Utah."

Rounding out the top 5 are Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia.

Pelletier says the report card is one of several efforts made by the center to advocate for improved personal finance education, noting that financial literacy among Americans is linked to positive outcomes like wealth accumulation, stock market participation, retirement planning, and avoiding high-cost alternative financial services like payday lending and auto title loans.

In December, his center issued its third state-by-state report card on high school personal finance education. Four states already have responded with laws and/or regulatory changes, while other states are currently considering legislation. Report cards also were issued in 2013 and 2015.

A link to the full top 10 list is here.

  1. Utah
  • Alabama
  • Missouri
  • Tennessee
  • Virginia
  • Florida
  • Illinois]
  • West Virginia
  • Georgia
  • Maryland

Champlain College's Center for Financial Literacy, a partnership among several financial institutions, non-profit entities and governmental agencies, promotes and develops financial literacy skills in K-12 students, college students, teachers (K-12 and college) and adults. The Center is an advocate for financial education opportunities at the local, state and national level. The Center has launched a variety of programs aimed at increasing the personal finance sophistication of Americans.

Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a traditional undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain and over 90 residential undergraduate and online undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates. Champlain's distinctive career-driven approach to higher education embodies the notion that true learning occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain College is included in the Princeton Review's The Best 382 Colleges: 2018 Edition. For the third year in a row, Champlain was named a "Most Innovative School" in the North by U.S. News & World Report's 2018 "America's Best Colleges," and an "A+ School for B Students" and is ranked in the top 100 Regional Universities of the North. Champlain is also featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges for 2018 as one of the "best and most interesting schools" in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and is a 2018 College of Distinction. For more information, visit www.champlain.edu.

Media Attachments

https://spark.adobe.com/page/9Wn4LRGGwK2ql/ to see the full list of Top Ten States for Financial Literacy

John Pelletier, director of the Champlain College Center for Financial Literacy in Burlington, Vermont.

Champlain College Center for Financial Literacy logo.

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