Should personal finance be part of the liberal arts? | The Indicator

A new AP Business with Personal Finance class at Hoover High in Alabama is framed as a response to the growing push for financial education in high schools. The host visits teacher Jerry Kimell’s classroom, where students talk through compound interest, savings accounts, Roth IRAs, and how macro forces like politics, technology, regulation, and inflation shape business outcomes. The segment argues that this kind of instruction is not just practical, but increasingly necessary as more states require personal finance to graduate. The host also notes evidence from the New York Fed suggesting financial education changes behavior, including higher odds of paying down credit card debt, buying a first home, or refinancing during the pandemic.

The College Board’s David Coleman says the new AP class was built from student surveys and focus groups, and that students want to learn how to make money, keep it, and turn ideas into businesses. He argues business belongs alongside the liberal arts because both are about adaptation and broad capability, not narrow specialization. The episode presents business literacy as a way to make humanities and personal interests more economically viable, while still making room for college-bound students and those headed straight to work.

Students in the class make the case from their own lives: one says he routes earnings from refereeing into a Roth IRA, while another says business learning helps her understand family conversations and the wider world. The episode’s bottom line is that business education is being recast as both career prep and a modern liberal art.