Students entering college have limited financial experience while making complex borrowing decisions. This paper examines a policy lever that may improve these decisions: high school personal finance graduation requirements. We use a difference-in-difference strategy exploiting differential timing of state mandates to determine their effects on the financial aid decisions of incoming freshmen at four-year institutions. Our results suggest financial education grad-uation requirements shifts students from high-cost to low-cost financing. The requirements increase aid applications and acceptance of federal loans, while decreasing the likelihood of holding credit card balances. Students from less affluent family backgrounds further reduce their likelihoods of working while enrolled and borrowers from more affluent family backgrounds reduce private loan amounts. The mandates do not change college attendance or choice of institution type.

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