learnfinancewithIllinois
All public school pupils in grades 9–12 must be taught and required to study consumer education, expressly including financial literacy (105 ILCS 5/27-305, renumbered from 27-12.1 by P.A. 104-391, eff. 8-15-25) — an instructional mandate enforced through 23 Ill. Adm. Code 1.440(a)(11), not a credit in the graduation-requirements section.
All public-school pupils, grades 9–12. The mandate is long-standing; no primary source states its original effective date or a first affected class.
- How it may be delivered
- EITHER — 23 Ill. Adm. Code 1.420(k)(2) verbatim: 'Consumer education may be included in course content of other courses, or it may be taught as a separate required course.' The superintendent must maintain evidence that each student received adequate instruction before completing grade 12.
Source: 23 Ill. Adm. Code 1.420(k)(2)
- Credit value
- Not yet verified to a primary source — we publish only what we can cite.
- Instructional-hour rule
- Not yet verified to a primary source — we publish only what we can cite.
- Below high school
- NONE — the statute and both rules scope the requirement to grades 9-12; no checkpoint below grade 9. The Social Science learning standards carry Economics and Financial Literacy content at elementary and middle bands as standards, not as an instructional-time mandate.
- State-mandated assessment
- NONE — and the widely repeated 'consumer education proficiency test' is NOT supported by current law, verified across four primary sources (current 27-305, historical 27-12.1, 1.420(k), 1.440(b)(3)). The only compliance mechanism is documentary: superintendent-maintained evidence of adequate instruction.
Source: 105 ILCS 5/27-305; 23 Ill. Adm. Code 1.420(k), 1.440(b)(3)
- Who may teach it
- 23 Ill. Adm. Code 1.420(k)(4) verbatim: teachers 'shall hold educator licensure valid for the grade levels taught and have completed at least three semester hours in consumer education courses.' Two prongs — the license, plus three semester hours of consumer-education coursework; the rule keys on coursework hours, not a subject endorsement. Informational only.
Source: 23 Ill. Adm. Code 1.420(k)(4)
- State course codes
- Not yet verified to a primary source — we publish only what we can cite.
- Standards framework
- Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science (June 2017) — financial literacy is the SS.EC.FL sub-strand inside the Economics and Financial Literacy discipline: at 9–12, six FL standards (SS.EC.FL.1.9-12 through SS.EC.FL.6.9-12) among 16 economics standards. No standalone consumer-education standards document exists.
- Funding a district may cite
- 105 ILCS 5/27-305(d): a school board MAY establish a special LOCAL fund receiving public funds and private contributions for promoting financial literacy — a local-fund authorization, not a grant program. Subsections (b) and (c) currently read '(Blank)'; whether P.A. 103-616's state Financial Literacy Fund survived codification is unresolved (see notes). No currently-effective ISBE-administered financial-literacy grant was confirmed.
Source: 105 ILCS 5/27-305(d)
- State agency contact
- Not yet verified to a primary source — we publish only what we can cite.
Facts on this page last verified 2026-08-09; every pack is re-verified on a six-month cadence, and anything we cannot cite is marked rather than guessed.
The district awards the credit — no platform can. Ours is designed to align with the state’s learning standards, and it produces the documentation a district needs to award credit: the course object with its federal course code, a pass determination that shows its arithmetic, an hour ledger that counts only observed instructional minutes, and a verified record of demonstrated mastery for every student.