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Westwood is one of a few Massachusetts public schools offering this level of financial literacy programming. Over an academic quarter, students learn about taxes, managing debt and credit cards, and are often tasked with real-world problems like saving and balancing a budget.
There has been a push in recent years to introduce such courses to all high schools across the country in an effort to tackle income disparities and help people early on understand household finances. Financial literacy alone can’t fix a system in which some people’s wealth far exceeds others due to decades of systemic inequality, but experts said such classes may be part of the equation to close the racial wealth gap by teaching students about saving, debt management, and investing.
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“It’s math, but it feels a lot easier than regular math,” said Yadi Baez, a 17-year-old in the Westwood High School class.
By 2028, 23 states will offer substantive financial education to high schoolers, according to a recent report from the Champlain College Center for Financial Literacy, which grades states based on their local efforts to expand such curriculum in schools.
Massachusetts, which does not mandate the class, received an F grade in the recent report. New Hampshire and Maine, which both mandate similar levels of financial education, received a B.
On the classroom wall, students work in groups for a short financial literacy project at Westwood High School.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
A 2021 report from the state Office of Economic Empowerment found that while most Massachusetts school districts do teach some financial literacy concepts, only about 17 percent of high schools require students to take such courses, citing issues such as limited funding and vetted curriculum, and simply not having enough class time in the day.
This spring, Massachusetts state legislators filed a bill to require high schools to teach financial education, but it failed to pass. State Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg, who sponsored the bill, said she’s going to try again next year.
John Pelletier, director of the Center for Financial Literacy, succinctly puts the need for such studies: “Not a day is going to go by when these kids aren’t going to think about money once they leave high school.”
With only a patchwork of states and schools currently requiring these courses, students of color are more likely to leave school without strong financial literacy education, according to the report from Champlain College, further bolstering a racial wealth gap that has only expanded nationally in recent years. The gap between the median white household and the median Black household, for example, grew by nearly $50,000 to $240,120 from 2019 to 2022, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.
Still, whiter, wealthier schools are more likely to offer stand-alone financial literacy courses, Pelletier said, than lower-income ones with a majority of students of color.
Westwood High School, located in an upper-middle class town on the outskirts of Boston, is 75 percent white, but is also part of METCO, a voluntary program to integrate more students of color in higher-performing suburban schools and to expand educational opportunities. Currently, 77 students from the Boston area are enrolled in the program in the district through the program.
Students are increasingly pushing for more programming around this topic. The Westwood class was first launched in 2022 as an elective for juniors and is now a graduation requirement for all students.
Taped on the wall are some examples for the financial literacy class.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
“The impetus of moving it from an elective class to a mandatory graduation requirement is really framed in our commitment to equity in the district,” said Westwood Public Schools Superintendent Timothy Piwowar. “Because if it’s an elective, those that choose to do it, you’re kind of perpetuating [the inequality that’s] already existed.”
Principal Amy Davenport said she’s been fielding calls from other schools in the region about starting their own program.
For Layla Shanshiry, 16, the class has been useful as she starts eyeing the future.
“We’re starting to look at colleges,” she said. “It has been eye-opening to see more about how to pay for loans … things that we will need for our lives beyond high school.”
The class even helped her make some money.
“I work at a restaurant and a retail store, and I didn’t know I could get taxes back,” she said, after learning about refunds.
After that, other students came to Brianne Mehigan, one of two teachers who lead the course, with the same question: “Break it down for me again, step by step,” they would ask her. “What do I need to do to get my money back?”
“As math teachers, the kids are like, ‘When are we going to use this? When are we going to apply this?’“ Mehigan said. “This was a really easy out for us to be like, ‘Here is your real life math.’”
Even parents are interested after noticing their teenage children are suddenly interested in credit scores, W-2s, and local property taxes, school officials said.
Students Giorgio Saghbini, 16, and Kira Smith, 17, worked together on a financial literacy project about the 1970s.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Some studies show the importance of learning financial literacy early on in schools is helpful for teens as they age into adulthood. According to a 2023 survey by the TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center, adults with a very low level of financial literacy are four times as likely to have difficulty making ends meet in a typical month. They’re also more likely to be debt constrained, and often lack emergency savings to cover one month of expenses.
“My family’s never really talked that much about financial literacy,” said Sebastian Amoros, 17, who said he enjoys the class because of the learning environment where students discuss what they’ve learned in small groups with the class.
Students of all levels participate in the financial literacy program — even the ones that may initially appear math averse.
“This kind of makes it so that everyone has that knowledge, even if it’s kind of the basic knowledge, it helps you build a foundation,” Amoros said.
The financial literacy class has been so popular that Westwood is planning to unveil an advanced version of the class starting in fall 2025.
This story was produced by the Globe’s Money, Power, Inequality team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter here.
Esmy Jimenez can be reached at esmy.jimenez@globe.com. Follow her @esmyjimenez.
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