This year’s graduating class will be the first to be required to take a course in personal finance.

“The purpose of the class is to instill good money habits early on in students,” teacher Marci Boland said. “Students will learn about an array of topics ranging from what consumer rights are to why freecreditreport.com isn’t free.”

Although Boland admits that she was not fully in support of the requirement at first, she believes the benefits out weight the costs.

“When you look at how many college students are up to their earlobes in credit card debt the need for the this class becomes apparent,” Boland said. “This is information every consumer needs to know.”

Nonetheless, not everyone at CHS is as supportive of the class as Boland.

“I legitimately never paid attention in class and still earned an A+, that is how little thought was required to pass the class,” senior Lewis Kopman said. “There is nothing I took from the class I couldn’t have gotten straight from the text book.”

Hearing similar comments about the class Hannah Rosenthal, a junior at Ladue High School, wanted to try to get out of the course.

“I don’t have a lot of chances to take interesting electives because of my second language and band,” Rosenthal said. “ So I thought this would be a good chance to squeeze in a fun class instead of personal finance.”

To pass out of the personal finance credit according to the Missouri Department of Education students must get a 90 percent or higher on an online multiple choice test which is an over view of the course.

Although it was no easy feat, Rosenthal was able to pass out of personal finance earlier this fall.

“I spent a couple days over the summer reading the text book to learn the material,” Rosenthal said. “Then I took the test and passed out of the course.”

At Ladue while dozens of students have attempted to pass out of the class, only a handful has succeeded.

Surprisingly, while passing out of personal finance is a new fad at Ladue High School, not a single CHS student has attempted to take the online test. Principal Louis Losos cited the graduation requirements to explain the phenomena.

“The board approved graduation requirements state that students must earn .5 credits in personal finance,” Losos said. “So if we were to follow these requirements even if a student passes the online test the course must still be taken.”

Although Losos said that students cannot pass out the course because of graduation requirements, the Missouri Department of Education website states that if students earn a 90 percent or higher on the online test, not only do students pass out of the class put earn credit for it.  It is unclear if this fact would satisfy the school boards requirement.

Thus, until a student attempts to pass out of this class it is hard to say what the school board’s decision will be.

Regardless, some students see no need to pass out of the class.

“I think it is good everyone has to take the class, it is really important,” junior Jack Hodapp said. “ If you passed out of the class, you would miss out on something.”