Should financial literacy classes be a requirement for Massachusetts students?

BOSTON – Credit scores, interest rates and taxes. Nine out of 10 students in Massachusetts are not required to learn about these things. Should the state make financial literacy a requirement for students?

As a teenager navigating middle school and high school Sean Simonini never got “the talk.”

“So, you think of the ‘birds and the bees’ right, that’s pretty uncomfortable topic right? But people feel even more uncomfortable talking to their kids about credit cards!” Simonini said.

Simonini says our schools really aren’t talking about money either. He was a star student at Billerica High. He earned a full scholarship to the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

“But I couldn’t tell you anything about my taxes,” Simonini said. “Couldn’t tell you what a credit score was. What a 401k was.”

So, the 19-year-old college sophomore is on a mission which started in high school, when Simonini joined his town’s school board as a student representative. Lately, he’s been testifying at the State House pushing a bill which would make a standalone, financial literacy class a requirement for every student in every district. The classes and teacher training would be funded by the State, not the local communities, with a so-called “financial literacy trust fund.”

“I started pulling together what would an education look like, where every student walked away with the skills they need to succeed. One of the first gaps I saw staring back at me was the lack of financial literacy here in the Commonwealth,” Simonini said.

Right now, 25 states have financial literacy as a graduation requirement. Massachusetts isn’t one of them. Yet our neighbors in New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island do require the course. Champlain College in Vermont has a Financial Literacy Center and puts out a report card every year grading each state on their efforts. Twenty-nine states got an ‘A’ or ‘B’. Massachusetts got an ‘F.’

Why? Well, out of more than 300 school districts in our state, only 16 districts require students to pass personal finance class.

Simonini says we are setting kids up to take on a lifetime of debt without knowing the ramifications. “We are allowing 18 year-olds to sign off on loans that are half a mortgage. Hundreds of thousands in an instant. And we are not orienting them at all to the financial impacts that can have on them decades down the road,” Simonini said.

Sue Camparato is teacher in Swampscott who believes Massachusetts is falling way behind other states. Swampscott is one of the districts that requires a personal finance class. Camparato teaches her students about credit scores, interest rates, stocks, how to save money and how to file taxes.

“I never have anyone say, ‘When am I going to use this?’ Never,” Camparato said.

One of her students, Sam Snitkovsky says this education has never been more important. He says kids are constantly targeted on sites like TikTok by so called money gurus peddling financial fiction. 

“This information isn’t coming from like ‘user3015.’ It’s coming from an actual teacher in the school, and you know the information is true,” Sam said.

Simonini thinks our lawmakers mistakenly think students are learning about money at home or in the nearly extinct “home ec” classes they took. “Over 50% of parents in this country don’t feel comfortable talking to their kids about money,” Simonini said.

State Treasurer Deb Goldberg leads the state’s Office of Financial Empowerment which offers a ton of free programs outside the class for young children all the way through senior citizens. “When we do our Credit for Life fairs for high school students, it is amazing what they don’t know,” said Goldberg.

Goldberg also believes a financial literacy course should be a requirement and is hoping lawmakers will move on the issue.

Goldberg believes a public-private partnership between Beacon Hill and outside partners could pay for the programs in every district. There are certainly hurdles to clear but she and Simonini think it’s needs to happen. Massachusetts cannot get an “F” on its next report card.  

If you have a question you’d like us to look into, please email questioneverything@cbsboston.com.