Vermont Personal Finance Standards & Graduation Requirements

Vermont at a glance

Requirement: State standards issued, not required to graduate
Legislation or authority: No PF graduation mandate enacted. VT State Board of Education adopted Jump$tart National Standards (Jan. 17, 2018); Education Quality Standards §§2120.5 & 2123.2 require districts to instruct and assess financial literacy. Act 73 of 2025 directed AOE to recommend new statewide graduation requirements.
Takes effect: EQS financial-literacy instruction/assessment requirement already in effect (locally implemented); a proposed 0.5-credit standalone requirement would, if adopted by the State Board, take effect SY2027-2028
State standards: Jump$tart Coalition's National Standards for K-12 Personal Finance Education (adopted by the VT State Board of Education, Jan. 2018), via The Vermont Framework for Proficiency: Financial Literacy

Personal finance in Vermont

Vermont has no graduation mandate specific to personal finance. It operates under Proficiency-Based Graduation Requirements that let each Supervisory Union/District decide how to deliver content, provided Education Quality Standards §§2120.5/2123.2 are met — financial literacy must be instructed and assessed using the state-adopted Jump$tart standards somewhere in a student's program. In practice this produces wide variation: some districts require a standalone course, others embed it in economics, CTE, or math.

That may change: under Act 73 of 2025, the Agency of Education has recommended a uniform 22.5-credit graduation framework that includes a 0.5-credit standalone Financial Literacy requirement, noting that 76% of Vermont's districts would need to expand current offerings to comply. The State Board of Education must decide on the full package by July 1, 2027, with implementation beginning SY2027-2028 and the Class of 2031 as the first affected cohort if adopted as written.

Last reviewed against official sources on 2026-07-15.

How Rapunzl maps to Vermont standards

Rapunzl's curriculum is built on the Council for Economic Education's six pillars. Here is how they line up with the Vermont framework.

Vermont strand	CEE pillar	Rapunzl modules
Spending and saving	Spending	The Basics Of Banking Buying Your First Home Paying For College
Credit and debt	Managing Credit	The Power & Risks Of Credit How To Make Loans Work For You
Employment and income	Earning Income	Taxes & Income Careers In Finance
Investing	Investing	Welcome To The Stock Market What Makes A Good Stock?ETFs & Mutual Funds
Risk management and insurance	Managing Risk	Diversification & Risk Insurance & Retirement
Financial decision-making	Financial Decision-Making	Financial Statistics Top Investor Strategies

Educators can request a full Vermont standards crosswalk through the Educator Dashboard.

Why Vermont schools choose Rapunzl

Rapunzl pairs a standards-aligned curriculum with a real-time investment simulator, so students learn personal finance by making real decisions with simulated $10,000 portfolios priced on live market data — not by reading about it. The curriculum scales from a three-week unit to a 28-week year-long course, which means it fits whichever shape Vermont's requirement takes in your district.

100,000+students have completed Rapunzl's curriculum
93%average financial literacy scores on national test over past 5 years, 24% above average
31interactive modules that can be customized into a course progression for your classroom
20+hours of gameplay in 2 interactive mini-games alongside our investment simulator and financial calculators

Teachers get an educator dashboard with grade export and standards crosswalks, English and Spanish materials, screen-reader accessibility, and a free national scholarship competition their students can enter each January.

Vermont personal finance requirement FAQ

Vermont does not require personal finance to graduate; it is a proficiency-based, local-control state that has adopted national PF standards and requires districts to teach and assess them, but leaves course structure to local school boards.

The requirement is set by No PF graduation mandate enacted. VT State Board of Education adopted Jump$tart National Standards (Jan. 17, 2018); Education Quality Standards §§2120.5 & 2123.2 require districts to instruct and assess financial literacy. Act 73 of 2025 directed AOE to recommend new statewide graduation requirements..

Takes effect: EQS financial-literacy instruction/assessment requirement already in effect (locally implemented); a proposed 0.5-credit standalone requirement would, if adopted by the State Board, take effect SY2027-2028.

Jump$tart Coalition's National Standards for K-12 Personal Finance Education (adopted by the VT State Board of Education, Jan. 2018), via The Vermont Framework for Proficiency: Financial Literacy.

Rapunzl's curriculum is built on the Council for Economic Education's six pillars: Earning Income, Spending, Saving, Investing, Managing Credit, and Managing Risk. Those pillars map to every strand in the framework, which is why the same course can satisfy standards that are worded differently from one state to the next.

Yes. Rapunzl's modules and real-time investing simulator cover the CEE six pillars, and those pillars crosswalk to the Vermont strands listed on this page.

Students learn by making real decisions with a simulated $10,000 portfolio priced on live market data, and teachers get an educator dashboard with grade export, materials in English and Spanish, and screen-reader accessibility.

Request a demo and we'll send the Vermont standards crosswalk along with classroom access.