What is the Educational Cost of Mandating Personal Finance Education?

September 12, 2025

What is the Educational Cost of Mandating Personal Finance Education?

NEFE's return on investment (ROI) research into course requirements for K-12 students was further substantiated by new work from Carly Urban, Ph. D., professor of economics at Montana State University's Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics. Urban's research demonstrates that requiring standalone high school personal finance courses significantly improves student financial outcomes with a high likelihood of not increasing district spending or staffing needs.

Urban is also a research fellow at the Institute for Labor Studies, a fellow at the TIAA Institute and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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March 13, 2026

Appalachian College Association Partnership Final Report Now Available Our first Financial Education Innovation & Impact Summit included the announcement of a new, research-to-practice initiative to champion and advance effective, population-specific practices in financial education. Joining us for that announcement was one of the first organizations to participate in this endeavor: The Appalachian College Association (ACA). Selecting the ACA meant gaining access to a student body made up of first-generation, rural and lower-income college students in the backbone of the Appalachian region, from Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Our goal was to work collaboratively with the association and individual colleges in strategizing, developing, implementing, promoting and measuring the success of customized financial education interventions tailored to their undergraduate population. Throughout the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, over 1,000 students on seven ACA campuses participated in remote, in-person or hybrid opportunities to prepare for their financial future. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected to provide a fully transparent evaluation of the purpose and benefits of the work. A full analysis of the outcomes of this project are now available in an independent report. [Executive Summary Button] [Full Report Button] Learn more about strategic partnerships at NEFE.

A new report highlights how NEFE and the Appalachian College Association partnered to deliver tailored financial education to more than 1,000 students across seven campuses.

NEFE Welcomes New Members to Its Board of Trustees

February 09, 2026

Four new leaders join NEFE’s Board of Trustees to advance its mission of expanding effective financial education nationwide

February 06, 2026

Hensley Highlights Financial Education Momentum With Media Nationwide

NEFE President and CEO Billy Hensley took financial education’s growing momentum to national media to help set the agenda for 2026.

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