In May, Utah got a crown. WalletHub ranked the Beehive State No. 1 in the country for high school budgeting education, ahead of all 49 other states.

Two months later, Utah got a bill. A Pew Charitable Trusts analysis reported in July found that debt collectors sued roughly 76,000 Utahns in 2025, up 23% since 2019. That’s on pace to pass the peak this state hit after the Great Recession.

Both things are true at the same time. As Utah students head back to class each year, that needs to be addressed.

We are five high school students that run the South Jordan chapter of Building Financial Futures of America. BFF is a student-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 42-3006971) providing free financial literacy education to K–12 students through a peer-to-peer chapter model. Its BFF Academy is a free four-week program covering budgeting, saving, credit and investing.

In 2003, SB154 made this the first state in the nation to require a personal finance course for graduation, beginning with the class of 2008. More than two decades later, much of the country is still catching up. It benefited Utah and made an influence.

But the state built a floor, and all of us have been treating it like a finish line.

Utah’s General Financial Literacy requirement is half a credit, usually taken junior or senior year. Students sit for a statewide end-of-course exam even though passing it is not required to graduate. And when the state auditor reviewed the program at its 10-year mark, the findings were both encouraging and uncomfortable: Students who took the course did show stronger money knowledge and habits, but the class had no natural home in how schools are organized and was funded on an ad hoc basis.

Meanwhile, the financial world a 17-year-old walks into keeps outrunning the syllabus. Buy now, pay later has moved from concert tickets to groceries, and more borrowers are missing those payments. Borrowing is now a tap on a screen. One semester of vocabulary in 11th grade does not survive contact with that.

Here is what we did not expect to learn from running a chapter: The shortage is not information. It is permission.

Almost nobody wants to admit at 17, or at 47, that they don’t know what APR means, or how a credit score is actually built, or why their first paycheck was smaller than the number on the offer. The questions we get are never the sophisticated ones. They are the basic ones people were too embarrassed to ask the first time, and then too embarrassed to ask for another 20 years.

Utah is not short on curriculum. We are short on low-stakes places to ask.

That is fixable, and it is cheap. We have three suggestions:

Let students teach. Districts should back peer-led finance clubs and count teaching money basics to seventh graders, to freshmen, to adults at a community center, as service learning. A junior who has to explain compound interest to a 12-year-old will never forget compound interest.

Open a monthly money hour. Every city library and rec center in Utah could host one free, no-sales-pitch session a month. BFF hosts workshops with presentations, activities and drives to encourage people to learn about basic financial literacy concepts. Nobody has to invent the material: The state already funds the Utah Council on Financial and Economic Education and the Finance in the Classroom library. BFF is taking the initiative to teach to the younger demographic.

Say the numbers out loud at home. Michelle Butler, who teaches financial literacy at Brighton High School, recently told the Deseret News that money talk “tends to be a taboo concept and topic among parents.” She is right, and the silence is expensive. Parents don’t need to be experts, but they do need to be guides. Showing a teenager one real power bill, one real pay stub, one real interest charge teaches more than any school worksheet can.

None of this requires a new mandate, a new line item or an argument about whose fault the debt is. It requires deciding that financial literacy is a habit a community keeps, not a box a 17-year-old checks on the way to a diploma.

Utah went first in 2003, and this state should be proud of it. But going first only counts for something if you keep going.

Reeya Sonawale, a junior at Hillcrest High School, serves as the president of the Building Financial Futures (BFF) Utah chapter, leading strategic initiatives at the intersection of capital allocation, youth leadership and economic policy. Driven by a deep interest in corporate strategy and venture building, they focus on scaling early-stage financial literacy frameworks to position young leaders for long-term wealth creation and market fluency.

Achuthan Harihara is a junior at Hillcrest High School. He likes to play basketball and ski. Achuthan serves as vice president of the Building Financial Futures (BFF) Utah chapter. He plans to study biomedical engineering and finance, with a focus on the cost of health care.

Aditya Jonnalagedda is a junior at Hillcrest High School and currently serves as the director for the Building Financial Futures (BFF) Utah chapter. He has a strong interest in finance and investing and hopes to pursue a career in investment banking and build a strong understanding of financial markets and investment strategies.

Nabha Chavan is a junior at Hillcrest High School and currently serves as the secretary of the Building Financial Futures (BFF) Utah chapter. Nabha is involved in multiple media projects and hopes to share her passion for fields like finance and marketing through working with BFF.

Ananya Pallinti is a junior at West High School in Salt Lake City and serves as the treasurer for the Building Financial Futures (BFF) Utah chapter. Alongside her interests in health sciences and chemistry, she manages the organization’s budgeting and financial tracking to help advance its mission of bringing financial literacy to students.

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