Finance
Financial literacy now required in 30 states, including Ohio, for high school graduation
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio is among 30 states that require a semester-long financial literacy class for high school graduation.
Students in financial literacy learn about saving, building credit, debt, budgeting and fraud.
As with many states, Ohio’s financial literacy requirement is new, taking effect for students who entered ninth grade on July 1, 2022.
Nationally, 73% of high school students will have received financial literacy education before they graduate, according to an August report by the National Endowment for Financial Education.
This is up from only 9% of high school students in 2017, the organization said.
But in recent years, state legislatures have increasingly passed laws requiring students to obtain financial literacy, recognizing the complex financial choices teens face as they graduate and enter adulthood, according to the Council for Economic Education.
From budgeting and managing debt, to banking and fraud prevention and understanding the economy, students need a baseline of knowledge to navigate their financial futures, the council stated in a 2024 report.
States of all political stripes are requiring financial literacy to graduate, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education, including Ohio’s neighbors: Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
In the state budget the General Assembly passed in June, lawmakers made a change to financial literacy, permitting students who work in public and private school-based branches of credit unions to earn credit toward their graduation requirement.
Read More: Budding entrepreneurs: High school finance lessons blossom for brothers into business success
Some credit unions have run school branches for years, as well as offer financial literacy education.
The push for financial education is already helping former high school students who used the foundational knowledge to launch businesses.
In Lake County, twins Derek and Dominik Zirkle relied on the financial literacy education they received at Madison High School, provided in part by Theory Federal Credit Union, to start D & D Meadery, a honey wine business that opened in 2024 and distributes to more than 300 retail locations.
The class provided the Zirkle twins, now 24, “the foundations to begin the journey,” Dominik Zirkle said. The twins began their business by using their savings, living leanly and reinvesting profits. They sought help from a Theory certified financial counselor who had previously visited their high school class.
Lake County-based Cardinal Credit Union has run school branches for years.
A Cardinal employee runs the branches, but students can volunteer as tellers to gain hands-on experience, performing activities such as making deposits, withdrawing money and paying loans.
Credit unions, including Cardinal, deposit small amounts of money into student accounts so students can practice moving funds, writing checks, and making mistakes in a safe environment.
This allows them to “afford to make minor mistakes,” said Michael DeSantis, Cardinal’s educational finance coordinator.
Finance
Low-income Chinese girl aces gaokao, inspires live-streamers offering help
A girl from a disadvantaged rural family in central China topped this year’s gaokao, attracting numerous live-streamers eager to finance her education, which she declined.
The home of 18-year-old secondary school graduate Han Yaping in a Henan province village was recently bustling with live-streamers.
This attention came after Han achieved an impressive score of 699 out of 750 in the gaokao, China’s national college entrance exam.
She has received offers from China’s two leading universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University.
Han’s accomplishment is particularly remarkable given her family’s impoverished circumstances.
Her mother suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine, preventing her from working. Her father, who earns a living through farming and odd jobs, serves as the family’s sole provider. Han also has a younger sister.
Finance
UK financial regulator publishes landmark AI review
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a landmark review on Monday that proposes recommendations to regulate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial decisions made by consumers.
The review, titled the Mills Review, anticipates that both consumers and firms will start delegating “more financial decision-making to AI systems,” including for agreements, initiating transactions, and executing decisions “within agreed parameters.” One of the key findings of the review outlined that while AI can help bridge advice gaps and “support growth,” there remain risks “associated with fraud, cyber security, and consumer harm.” Conducting the review, Sheldon Mills highlighted that “AI can also amplify risks: bias, discrimination, exclusion, opaque decision-making (particularly when multiple AI models interact), misleading or hallucinatory advice and erosion of consumer trust.”
The review stated that presently, one in five adults in the UK are “already open to AI making decisions for them,” particularly when decisions feel “complex or high stakes.” It found that roughly 26 percent of the population “trust general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for financial advice” with little awareness that such platforms provide no “formal routes to recourse” or protections.
Overall, the Mills Review identified four areas that it anticipates will be impacted by AI in the financial sector: “the transformation of firms,” “new consumer journeys,” “a reshaped competition landscape,” and “amplified financial crime and cyber risk.” The FCA projected the shift in how consumers and firms consult AI to take place by 2030.
The Mills Review put forth seven “priority” recommendations to be considered by the FCA Board. It recommended that any transitions to autonomous AI models be monitored and that regulatory frameworks and perimeters be adapted and secured. The review called for the strengthening of “system-wide coordination and oversight,” the scaling up of the FCA’s AI Lab to enable it to support AI models and innovation for agentic finance, and an “AI-enabled agentic supervisory model” to be built and adopted. Finally, it recommended that a trusted “public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service” be developed.
The FCA announced, in the press release, that it will launch an AI “good and poor practice publication” in late 2026.
Finance
Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approves audit contract, new finance director position
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – The Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approved a one-year audit contract capped at $131,750 plus $225 per hour during a virtual meeting Monday, along with a new finance director job description.
The contract is with Mauldin & Jenkins Certified Public Accountants, an Atlanta-based firm, and covers the 2025-26 fiscal year and the restatement of the 2024-25 fiscal year and ancillary services through FY 2029-2030. The work is set to be completed by Nov. 15.
The board approved the contract in a 5-0 vote.
Audit contract details
Interim Chief Financial Officer Kyna Koch said the cost is already accounted for in the district’s budget.
“And is actually less than we expected given our current situation — we were thrilled with the bid,” Koch said.
Koch said she believes this is Mauldin & Jenkins’ first school district audit in Kentucky, but that the firm works with school districts of more than 100,000 students throughout the Southeast.
“Quite frankly when I spoke to the folks at KDE they were thrilled because we’re running kind of short of auditors who want to do school district audits — so all around I think this was a win-win for everyone,” Koch said.
New finance director position
The board also approved a new job description for the position of Director of Finance. Acting Superintendent Dr. Bill Bradford said the title will replace two associate director positions.
“Which will not only save the school district money but it’s also going to streamline our work and align internal controls to make room for a more efficient unit,” Bradford said.
Koch said the position will be posted as soon as possible following the board’s approval.
Closed session
The board went into closed session for more than an hour to discuss pending investigations that could lead to employee discipline. When the board returned, it took no action and adjourned the meeting.
Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.
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