Virginia Personal Finance Standards & Graduation Requirements
Virginia requires a full-credit Economics and Personal Finance course to graduate, for both standard and advanced diplomas.
Virginia at a glance
- Requirement
- Standalone course required
- Legislation or authority
- Va. Code 22.1-200.03 — Economics & Financial Literacy (Board of Education, ~2009)
- Passed
- ~2009 (Board of Education objectives; codified)
- Takes effect
- Class of 2015 and later
- First graduating class affected
- Class of 2015
- Course length
- One (1.0) credit Economics and Personal Finance (EPF) course
- State standards
- Virginia Economics and Personal Finance Standards of Learning (SOL)
What Virginia requires
Virginia requires a one-credit Economics and Personal Finance course for both standard and advanced diplomas, starting with the class of 2015.
VDOE maintains the Economics & Personal Finance Standards of Learning and objectives. At a full credit, Virginia asks for more instructional time than the half-credit most states require.
The pairing matters as much as the credit. Because the course is Economics and Personal Finance together, the Standards of Learning open with the market economy and then work through earning income, careers and taxes, money management and budgeting, saving and investing, credit and debt management, and insurance, risk management and consumer protection — students meet personal finance inside an economics frame rather than as a standalone life-skills unit. And because Va. Code 22.1-200.03 dates to around 2009 and has bound every diploma since the class of 2015, Virginia has more than a decade of graduates who took the full credit. The district-level work is keeping a long-running course current, not launching a new one.
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How Rapunzl maps to Virginia standards
Rapunzl's curriculum is built on the Council for Economic Education's six pillars. Here is how they line up with the Virginia framework.
| Virginia strand | CEE pillar | Rapunzl modules |
|---|---|---|
| Economics & the market economy | Economics | The Economy & Federal ReserveReading Company Financials |
| Earning income, careers & taxes | Earning Income | Taxes & IncomeCareers In Finance |
| Money management & budgeting | Spending | The Basics Of BankingBuying Your First HomePaying For College |
| Saving & investing | Investing | Welcome To The Stock MarketWhat Makes A Good Stock?ETFs & Mutual Funds |
| Credit & debt management | Managing Credit | The Power & Risks Of CreditHow To Make Loans Work For You |
| Insurance, risk management & consumer protection | Managing Risk | Diversification & RiskInsurance & Retirement |
Educators can request a full Virginia standards crosswalk through the Educator Dashboard.
Why Virginia schools choose Rapunzl
Virginia requires a full credit of Economics and Personal Finance for every diploma, standard or advanced, and has since the class of 2015. A full credit means more instructional time than the half most states ask for, and it means the course has to carry economics as well as personal finance. Rapunzl covers both: a live-market simulator where students manage a $10,000 portfolio for the finance SOLs, and modules on markets, the Federal Reserve, and company financials for the economics side. The sequence stretches to fill a full-year EPF course.
- 150,000+students have completed Rapunzl's curriculum
- 93%average financial literacy scores on national test over past 5 years, 26% higher than 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 a dashboard that exports grades and crosswalks each lesson to the Virginia Economics and Personal Finance Standards of Learning, with materials in English and Spanish that work with a screen reader. Rapunzl's January scholarship competition gives a full-credit course a payoff students chase on their own.
Virginia personal finance requirement FAQ
Virginia requires a full-credit Economics and Personal Finance course to graduate, for both standard and advanced diplomas.
The requirement is set by Va. Code 22.1-200.03 — Economics & Financial Literacy (Board of Education, ~2009).
Takes effect: Class of 2015 and later.
One (1.0) credit Economics and Personal Finance (EPF) course.
Virginia's requirement is a standalone course requirement.
In practice that means a dedicated class of its own, taken for credit, rather than a few personal finance lessons folded into another subject.
The Class of 2015 is the first graduating class that has to meet it, so earlier classes are not held to the requirement.
Timeline: Class of 2015 and later.
If you are planning a course now, that timeline is the window to have curriculum in place before Virginia starts holding students to it.
Virginia Economics and Personal Finance Standards of Learning (SOL).
Rapunzl is built on the Council for Economic Education's six pillars: earning income, spending, saving, investing, managing credit, and managing risk. Virginia's Economics and Personal Finance SOLs pair those pillars with an economics strand, and the crosswalk above shows how Rapunzl covers both.
Yes. Because the EPF course combines economics and personal finance, Rapunzl covers both: the six CEE pillars for the finance SOLs and dedicated economics modules for the market-economy strand.
Students learn by investing a simulated $10,000 in real market conditions, and teachers manage the class from a dashboard with grade export, bilingual materials, and screen-reader support.
Request a demo and we'll send the Virginia EPF crosswalk plus classroom access so you can see how it fills a full-credit course.
Virginia requires a full credit of Economics and Personal Finance under Va. Code 22.1-200.03 for both standard and advanced diplomas, and every graduate since the class of 2015 has taken it. With the course long established, the district work is keeping its content current against the VDOE Standards of Learning, which pair market economics with income, budgeting, saving and investing, credit, and insurance.
At a full credit, Virginia has room for sustained practice rather than a single unit, which is where a simulation earns its time. Rapunzl adds a live-market simulator where students manage a $10,000 portfolio, alongside modules on credit, taxes, and budgeting, and scales to fill as much of the EPF year as a district wants.
Bring Rapunzl to your Virginia classroom
Explore the curriculum and real-time simulator free for 30 days. Tell us about your school and we'll send your all-access demo along with the Virginia standards crosswalk.
Request DemoPersonal finance requirements in other states
- Alabama Standards
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- Delaware Standards
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- Wisconsin Standards