Here’s a word cloud created by our research team based on their analysis of personal finance course descriptions at almost 10,000 high schools (the larger the font of the word, the more frequently it occurs):

A few observations:

• Where is personal finance incorporated in the curriculum? You can see that “business,” “economics,” and “consumer” are some of the more prominent words suggesting that they are embedded in these courses.
• What are the most frequently covered topics in a personal finance course? It would appear credit, banking, career, insurance, investing, budgeting are the most prominently displayed words.
• What are some terms that aren’t listed or seem to be under-represented?
  • College does not appear very prominently: Given that student debt has now climbed over $1.5 trillion, a “paying for college” unit should be an integral part of any curriculum
  • There is no sign of “identity theft” or related words in the cloud which is clearly not the case in the “real world.”
  • Technology also seems to appear less in the course descriptions given how it has shaped the financial services industry in the last decade.
  • Behavioral finance does not appear to have found its way into high school classes yet.

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NGPF will be releasing our “Access to Personal Finance” research report later this fall, which will include word clouds for all 50 states so you can see what schools are emphasizing in your state.

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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