AFCPE Government Relations Task Force Spotlight

Written By: Mark Munzenberger, AFCPE Government Relations Task Force

Many members of the AFCPE community are familiar with the non-profit organization based in Denver – the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE). At its core, NEFE champions effective financial education. NEFE is an independent, centralizing voice providing leadership, research and collaboration to advance financial well-being for all. Their website is loaded with valuable tools and information, and I want to specifically highlight their Personal Finance Ecosystem (PFE) – a research-informed framework that describes the factors influencing an individual’s state of financial well-being. Any practicing financial educators should familiarize themselves with the PFE.  

We are fortunate to have Hunter Field, NEFE’s manager of Policy & Advocacy, serves on the AFCPE Government Relations Task Force, consistently bringing us updates on advocacy efforts related to youth financial education. As of Q3 2025, 29 states now require high school students to take a stand-alone personal finance course before graduation. However, the nationwide effort is still a work in progress, as we’ve seen dramatic differences in how individual states choose to fulfill the statutory requirement. Are we making progress? Yes. Is the lack of standardization concerning? Also, yes. 

In my role as the Financial Education Manager at the University of Michigan Credit Union, it’s fairly common to teach 2 to 3 personal finance classes per week, to students of all ages, all socio-economic backgrounds, and all levels of educational achievements. However, if you asked me what the one constant is to all my presentations – it’s that I never assume that these students come to my sessions having already mastered the “financial basics”. We cover effective budgeting, because many times I’ve had second-year medical students ask me to explain the difference between a fixed expense and a variable expense. We cover credit, because I’ve had graduate level business students ask me to explain what happens if they only make minimum payments on their credit cards. We cover financial fraud because I have experience with sophomore students losing thousands of dollars to fake rental scams or busy students falling victim to a phishing scheme where they unknowingly provided access to their bank account to a scammer. At the School of Engineering, we cover the importance of building an emergency fund because the funds in their volatile Robinhood account will no longer cover a plane ticket home. 

I often share this statement with many of the college students I work with – “There is no opting out of personal finances. We ALL must navigate our way through the system, and the quicker you can develop confidence with the intersection of your financial literacy (knowledge) and your financial capability (decision-making) the better off you’ll be.” 

The importance of investing in our K-12 youth with reliable, time-tested financial education is long overdue. Young adults  in their early 20’s with little to no experience with managing money, building credit, loans, or even investing, are ripe for some serious challenges. Unfortunately, many fall victim to predatory lending, scams, or ridiculous financial advice provided by someone on a TikTok video.  

Let’s stop settling for “slow and steady” progress with this effort because some say change is hard and we’ve done it this way for years. Let’s stop having to constantly defend the importance of embedding personal finance into K-12 schools because some say parents can handle it just fine. Let’s stop worrying that our local teachers might not be “financial gurus or experts” themselves. The goal is progress, not perfection. The time for mandatory financial education across all fifty states with clear national standards for youth is now.