Now on the College Course Menu: Personal Finance

More than two-thirds of states require high school students to take a personal finance class before graduation, according to the Council for Economic Education. Now, personal finance courses, offered mostly as electives, are sprouting up at public and private colleges nationwide and getting a boost from a new initiative by Stanford University. While some colleges have long offered personal finance classes, the new effort to develop and promote college-level personal finance instruction carries Stanford’s academic heft.