learnfinancewithTennessee
One-half credit in Personal Finance is required for a regular high school diploma (SBE High School Policy 2.103; Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0520-01-03-.06). NO Tennessee statute creates the requirement — it is State Board rule and policy.
All students earning a regular diploma. No primary source states which graduating class or cohort the requirement first applied to — left null rather than inferred.
- How it may be delivered
- STANDALONE 0.5-credit course OR an approved SUBSTITUTE per SBE Policy 3.103 (rev. 02/27/2026): Dual Enrollment Business Program; Agricultural Business and Finance; Business Management; Entrepreneurship; or JROTC III (if the instructor attends the Personal Finance training). No embedded option. Statewide Dual Credit Intro to Business is being phased out from 2025-26.
Source: SBE Graduation Permissions and Substitutions Policy 3.103 (rev. 02/27/2026)
- Credit value
- one-half credit within the 22-credit minimum for a regular diploma
- Instructional-hour rule
- Not yet verified to a primary source — we publish only what we can cite.
- Below high school
- NONE — SBE Middle Grades Policy 2.102 (rev. 11/22/2024) contains no reference to personal finance, financial literacy, or economics; its required components are ELA, math, science, social studies, project-based civics, arts, a career interest inventory, and one computer science course.
Source: SBE Middle Grades Policy 2.102
- State-mandated assessment
- NONE — TCAP EOCs cover English I/II, Algebra I/II, Geometry, Integrated Math I-III, Biology, and U.S. History; no Personal Finance assessment.
Source: TDOE TCAP blueprints
- Who may teach it
- Rule 0520-02-06-.02(3) (eff. Dec 8, 2024): a personal finance teacher must hold a valid Tennessee license AND either (1) complete at least 14 clock hours of training on the state-adopted Personal Finance standards (TDOE or approved provider), or (2) hold an active endorsement in Economics, Business, Marketing, or Family and Consumer Sciences (these four are exempt from the training). JROTC instructors need the training for the JROTC III substitution. Informational only.
- State course codes
- C29H11 — Personal Finance (TDOE course code: C=CTE, 29=Finance content area, H=high school; 'required for graduation but does not count toward concentrator status'; MEDIUM confidence — rests on a single TDOE page, and SBE Policy 3.205 lists Personal Finance under BOTH academic (14.1) and CTE (23.6) headings, so a general-education-prefixed variant cannot be ruled out; verify against the live Tennessee Course Catalog)
Source: TDOE Finance career cluster page; SBE Approved High School Courses Policy 3.205 (rev. 05/30/2025)
- Standards framework
- Not yet verified to a primary source — we publish only what we can cite.
- Funding a district may cite
- Tennessee Financial Literacy Commission (Treasury; Financial Literacy Program Act of 2010, T.C.A. §49-6-1701 et seq.): FREE PD and curricula for districts — Financial Fitness for Life, $martPath (K-8), My Classroom Economy, NGPF middle school, the 'From Barter to Budget' trunk; 4,850+ educators trained. In-kind training and materials, NOT a claimable district grant; no dedicated state grant line exists.
Source: Tennessee Treasury, Financial Education school resources
- State agency contact
- No TDOE personal-finance contact published. State-level contact: Bill Parker, Director, Tennessee Financial Literacy Commission, Department of Treasury — (615) 532-5892, tn.flc@tn.gov, P.O. Box 198782, Nashville, TN 37219-8782.
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.