On Mar. 24, 2025 Governor Andy Beshear signed House Bill 342—the financial literacy bill—into law. The law now requires the Class of 2029 and classes after to take a financial literacy course as a stand-alone elective to graduate.
The course would be required to teach students about “budgeting, saving and investing credit and debt, insurance and risk management, including but not limited to personal insurance policies, taxes; and the necessity of critical review and understanding of documents prior to 25 signing agreement or approval and the ability to provide a signature in,” according to the final law.
The bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Michael Meredith, Steve Bratcher, Beverly Chester-Burton, Daniel Elliott, Ken Fleming, Vanessa Grossl, and Sarah Stalker. It passed unanimously through both chambers.
According to ABC 13 WBAKO News, the bill was looked at positively for Kentucky students.
“I work with a lot of adults that get to a point in time, and they admit they don’t understand finances. If it doesn’t start through some sort of mandatory practice at a young age, I’m afraid most kids are not going to get it,” Rep. Michael Meredith said in a press release.
Many adults today struggle with understanding finances due to the fact they lacked the proper education in school. This can cause challenges in their day to day because they lack the concept of being able to manage their money correctly causing adults to go into debt. However, this new literacy law may be the push needed to make a change.
“By providing financial guidance, we are not only teaching students how to make positive decisions but also making them aware of the long-term repercussions and dangers of poor decisions,” Meredith said.
Kolby Knauer (9) agrees the class is a need for students’ education.
“I think that the class is good for us and necessary to our education and our personal life.”
Though the bill was looked at positively, there are some concerns rising for students and teachers especially in Highlands high school.
One concern for students is not knowing where to place them in their four year plan. Highlands runs on a six period day which brings challenges in adding additional elective requirements.
“We do have so many offerings here and we have lots of pathways for students to choose from. I think they might feel like it might be a little bit of a burden trying to figure out where to place it into their four year plan,” Counselor Laura Schnitzler said.
Principal John Darnell is committed to providing opportunities to students to take it without taking away other electives.
“We have a menu of options that ninth graders and below that are taking the course they can take their senior and junior year. We are trying to customize it so it fits best with your guys schedule,” Darnell said.
Some options they are giving students is to take it as a stand-alone elective in eighth grade, a summer option and multiple elective options like accounting and finance, AP business with personal finance, AP macroeconomics and personal finance.
In a poll given to the class of 2029, 39.3% of students are taking a financial literacy course during the summer, 28.6% of students don’t know when they will, and 21.4% are going to take it during their senior or junior year while the other 10.7% are using their elective.
