Sure, NGPF offers high school personal finance courses for a Trimester and a Full Year, but the real magic happens in our flagship Semester Course. If you want to make sure you're using the best of the best lessons but don't have time for the full Semester Course, here are our recommendations for trimming Semester Course. 

Suggestion 1: Just the basics

Focus on the most immediately useful topics for young people, skipping the more advanced topics or skills they'll need later in life. 

Suggestion 2: Skip units your school addresses elsewhere

Maybe you're one of the lucky schools with a whole semester devoted to Investing -- you could skip that unit. Here are some other questions you could ask: 

• Does your school have a college advisement office, a dynamic set of guidance counselors, and/or a course devoted to college readiness? You may be able to skip Paying for College and/or Career.
• Do most of your students have plans other than a 4-year college? If so, make Paying for College an independent study and/or substitute in the NGPF Mini-unit Alternatives to 4-Year Colleges
• Do many of your same students take Family and Consumer Science courses? If so, you may be able to skip Budgeting and/or Consumer Skills.
• Does every senior have an advisory, senior seminar, or "adulting" style course? If so, check the syllabus and see what's covered there so you don't duplicate.

Suggestion 3: Align to standards

If you teach according to the National Standards for Personal Financial Education, the best aligned units would look roughly like this: 

And, of course, if your state or district has its own standards it wants you to follow, use the unit plans for all 11 Semester Course units to review the learning objectives of each lesson and decide which you should keep or skip to make sure you're meeting local expectations. 

Check out the Course Materials page to find crosswalks that show the alignment between NGPF materials and the National Standards for Personal Financial Education, as well as many state standards. 

Suggestion 4: Cut individual lessons

One thing that makes NGPF special is our attention to more niche (but important!) topics and our inclusion of interactive, student-led, deep diving activities. But, if you really are short for time, here are some lessons you might start by trimming out: 

• Unit 2: Banking
  • Cut Lesson 4: Being Unbanked
  • Choose either Lesson 7: Digital Wallets & P2P Apps or Lesson 8: Online and Mobile Banking
• Unit 3: Investing
  • Stop after Lesson 7: Deep Dive Into Funds
• Unit 4: Types of Credit
  • Cut Lesson 6: Mortgages and/or Lesson 7: Predatory Lending
• Unit 8: Insurance 
  • Combine Lesson 4: How Health Insurance Works and Lesson 5: How to Access Health Insurance
  • Cut Lesson 6: Other Types of Insurance
• Unit 9: Taxes
  • Cut Lesson 5: Time to File, where students practice an entire Form 1040
• Unit 11: Consumer Skills
  • Cut Lesson 2: Advertisements & Dark Patterns
  • Cut Lesson 5: Scams & Fraud

Of course, you're welcome to use our Trimester Course instead! It's fully up-to-date and includes many of the same lessons and super engaging activities that Semester Course does. 

About the Author

Jessica Endlich

When I started working at Next Gen Personal Finance, it's as though my undergraduate degree in finance, followed by ten years as an educator in an NYC public high school, suddenly all made sense.

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