Balancing a budget, doing taxes, investing. All things many adults know how to do — but young people? Many aren’t so sure. There’s a bipartisan push to change that situation – but it's run into some opposition in the mad dash to the end of the legislative session.
HB 25-1192 would make one semester of personal finance a state requirement for high school graduation. It would apply to students entering ninth grade on or after Sept. 1, 2026. If it passes, Colorado would be the 27th state to require personal finance for students.
Sounds simple, but it’s kind of a big deal. The state of Colorado has named only two specific courses high school students need to graduate – a civics class and a course that includes topics connected to the Holocaust and genocide. Local school districts set the other graduation requirements like math and social studies and English. But bill sponsors say personal finance is one of those life skills that also has the power to confront societal problems like credit card debt and high rates of foreclosure, poverty, incarceration, welfare, and crime.
“If you do not understand financial literacy, I submit to you that you cannot succeed in life,
said bill sponsor Republican Rep. Anthony Hartsook.
The bill would give districts broad discretion on implementing the course, the curriculum used and the certification requirements for teaching a financial literacy class.
Bipartisan push
Most Colorado students go out into the world with no knowledge about taxes, savings, loans or investments. Credit card and medical debt are at their highest levels in history. Hartsook tells the story of when he was a commander in the U.S. Army, he’d see soldiers try to explain why their checks bounced. They simply couldn’t do it.
“In the Army ….I had the authority to send them to financial literacy class. They would come back every single time and go, ‘Wow. I didn't know that.’”
Today’s students face even greater challenges when they graduate: mobile banking, investing and complex taxes. Students are more vulnerable than ever to online gambling, cryptocurrency schemes and other get-rich-quick apps online.
For Democratic Rep. Jennifer Bacon, who has a business degree and was a math teacher, it’s partly an equity issue. Data show that Colorado schools with majority students of color are much less likely to have access to a personal finance class. Less than a quarter of Colorado’s districts include personal finance as a requirement to graduate.
“It is important to us that all students, regardless of their school district, regardless of their affluence, have access to this information because all students deserve it.”
The bill passed the House. It has been debated in the Senate Education Committee and is scheduled for a vote in that committee Monday. There’ll likely be more amendments prior to the vote.
Critical lessons learned
Students from across the state who have taken financial literacy testified for the bill in both the House and Senate education committees.
Glenwood Springs High School student Genesis Cortez got a job at 14. She wanted to buy her own things.
“Looking back, I was very careless with my purchases,” she told lawmakers. “I had a terrible shopping addiction. I would splurge daily because my biweekly paycheck of about $500 made me feel like a millionaire.”
But in her sophomore year she took financial literacy and learned about investment and saving. She said she was young enough that her mistakes were reversible. Cortez wants other students to have the same opportunity so they don’t make financial mistakes later in life. She also pushed back against an argument that students don’t have time in their schedule for the course. She said seniors at her school have very few required courses left to take.
“There's room in their schedules for this course, but without requiring it, students may choose the easiest path, which oftentimes is a free period.”
Teaching personal finance by life experience
Another student, Jorneli Vargas Navarro says she too, was lucky to take financial literacy.
“As a first-generation college student, I didn’t know things such as the Pell grant or how to manage finances. If it wasn’t for these classes, I probably wouldn’t have ever known.”
Business teacher Hilary Wimmer, Colorado’s 2020 Teacher of the Year, told lawmakers she grew up very poor but stumbled into a finance class in college.
“That actually changed my life, but unfortunately, before that, I had racked up $1,000 of credit card debt.”
She made it her mission to prevent other students from being in her situation.
She told legislators about some of the students she’s helping now: one who is living in a hotel who is teaching her mom budgeting tips, a student who brought his friend to class to learn how to open a Roth IRA, a special education student who is has learned a method of budgeting, and a student who can’t complete a federal financial aid form because his father is three years behind in filing taxes.
Requirement has had some push back
Colorado is a local control state. That means the state sets academic standards while districts set curriculum and graduation requirements to follow those standards. Some of Colorado’s major education groups like the Colorado Rural Schools Alliance worry that there’s already not enough time in the day to get to all of the standards.
“Our schools right now are so strapped. And they're just surviving with fewer teachers, lack of counselors and support staff,” said interim executive director Frank Reeves. “It's just not prudent to add more to their plate right now. And I don't hear anything or see anything in this bill or any other bills taking stuff off of the plate of our schools and our staff.”
A charter school advocate worried smaller charter schools lack the resources to develop a new course and asked for charter schools to be exempt.
The Colorado Education Association had concerns that the requirement would increase workload for teachers and staff. Some funding was added to the bill for curriculum and stipends for teachers, which gained partial support from the organization. The organization would like the same support guaranteed for school counselors in an amendment.
Bill would also require FAFSA
Some are uncomfortable about another requirement of the bill. Students must understand and practice filling out the federal or state financial aid form (FAFSA or CAFSA) unless they and their parents opt out. A requirement they submit the form was stricken from the bill. Colorado has one of the lowest FAFSA completion rates in the country. Each year, more than $30 million in federal aid is left on the table.
Andy Bristol, director of curriculum and postsecondary education in the Harrison School District, while he supports a financial literacy course, said the form is just one more hurdle to kids graduating.
He said many students in his district plan to enter the trades, the military or workforce after graduation.
“For them, this requirement feels like an unnecessary hurdle, a task that doesn't reflect their goals or serve their future plans.”
Still others argue that financial literacy is already part of the social studies standards.
But teachers teach courses, not standards
Advocates say without a dedicated personal financial literacy course, the topic is not taught consistently. Glenwood Springs teacher Jill Wilson, who has taught financial literacy for more than 20 years, said it’s not a huge lift to incorporate the subject into the state’s civics requirement by teaching half a semester civics, half personal finance.
Teachers from Denver Public Schools echoed those comments.
Theresa Connolly, financial literacy specialist in DPS, said the district adopted financial literacy as a graduation requirement after a group of alumni advocated for it. She said there are several financial institutions that provide free curriculum and training. The district has used Next Gen free teacher training and curriculum resources.
“It's free and easy to use, which has made the implementation of this requirement seamless,” she said. “As I talked to more and more teachers who teach this course, there's a resounding message – this is one of the most important classes we teach.”
Funding for public media is at stake. Stand up and support what you value today.
