For years, Kansas politicians have argued over what students should know before they graduate. Lawmakers have pushed students to pass a civics test and complete personal finance coursework. Gov. Kelly has warned against legislative overreach into curriculum decisions.
Both debates are warranted. Students should understand how the government works. They should also know how to budget, save, and prepare for major financial decisions.
But taken alone, these debates miss the bigger picture. They miss economics.
Arguing over civics and personal finance without economics is a bit like teaching students the rules of football but never teaching them how to read the scoreboard.
Civics teaches how government works. Financial literacy teaches how to manage money. Economics teaches how choices shape private decisions, public policy, and the future that students will soon inherit. I saw this firsthand while teaching economics through the Topeka Center for Advanced Learning & Careers, better known as TCALC.
Topeka should be proud. TCALC is one of the city’s quiet success stories. Students there do more than sit through lectures about future careers. They explore pathways, shadow employers, and connect classroom learning to life after graduation. TCALC has built partnerships in health care, business, education, skilled trades and many other industries.
That is what makes TCALC a gem. It treats high school students as capable young adults preparing for real responsibilities. It also shows why economics belongs in the broader conversation about improving Kansas K-12 education.
When students see economics as the study of choices, not merely charts and formulas, their eyes open, and they begin to understand that every decision carries a cost. They see how incentives shape behavior. They learn that public policy should not be judged by good intentions alone, but by results, tradeoffs and consequences.
Today’s students are growing up in a world full of economic questions they will soon be asked to vote on, pay for, or live under: taxes, spending, regulation, workforce development and more. These questions are not only political. They are economic. Tariffs are often sold as a way to punish foreign countries.
Economics helps students see that there are taxes on imports with real costs for American families and businesses. “Free” health care may sound compassionate, but economics trains students to ask who pays, how much and at what cost. Subsidies and bailouts may be called investments, but economics helps students ask whether public money should favor some businesses or industries over others.
Some may respond that Kansas and many other states have already made progress by emphasizing personal finance. That is true, and it is welcome.
According to the Council for Economic Education’s 2026 Survey of the States, 39 states now require students to take a personal finance course to graduate. But the same survey shows only 22 states require economics, a decline of four states since 2024. That reveals a growing misconception: Too many treat personal finance as a substitute for economics rather than a companion to it.
At TCALC, the difference between the two subjects became clear. Personal finance teaches students how to calculate an interest payment. Economics teaches why interest rates rise or fall in the first place. Personal finance teaches students how to make a budget. Economics teaches why inflation weakens purchasing power. Personal finance encourages students to compare wages. Economics helps them understand why productivity, demand and competition affect pay.
So while Kansas leaders debate what students should know before they graduate, they would do well to look beyond the Capitol and visit TCALC. There, I watched students connect inflation to grocery bills, interest rates to car loans, and wages to the skills employers actually demand. They were connecting knowledge to work, community, responsibility, and opportunity.
If Kansas wants citizens who can work, build, vote, lead, and govern themselves wisely, then economics cannot remain an afterthought. TCALC has shown us a model. Now we need the wisdom to follow it.
Michael Austin is an economist who recently taught through the Topeka Center for Advanced Learning & Careers.
This opinion column was originally published by the Topeka Capital Journal and can be found here.
