Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill requiring all Florida high school students to pass a financial literacy class to graduate; it will go into effect next year.
The skills prioritized by the legislation will be “applicable in their lives regardless of what path they take,” DeSantis said Tuesday at a Tampa press conference, The New York Post reports.
“This will provide a foundation for students to learn about the basics of money management — understanding debt, understanding how to balance a checkbook, understanding the fundamentals of investing,” DeSantis added.
“Yanely Espinal, a Brooklyn native who works with the nonprofit Next Gen Personal Finance, also endorsed the spirit of the legislation at Tuesday’s press conference,” the Post reports.
“As a daughter of immigrant parents, we were in a household where it was cash only,” she said. “So I realized very quickly that online banking and investing apps, trading apps, budgeting apps, cryptocurrency — the world of money is changing so fast. And if we don’t help our students keep up, the next generation is going to repeat cycles of a lack of financial literacy.”
