High school · Wisconsin

The Wisconsin personal finance graduation requirement

A Wisconsin diploma now requires at least a half credit of personal financial literacy as a stand-alone course. Here is what counts and how to help your teen.

Private 1-on-1 on Zoom · $250 / hour

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A student at a desk late at night, frowning over a finance problem in a notebook
The requirement

What Wisconsin asks for.

Taken from the state's own law and education department. Your school counselor can confirm how your district applies it.

The rule

A stand-alone half credit

Students need at least a half credit of personal financial literacy, taught as its own course at the high school level.

Separate credit

Not math or social studies

The credit cannot double as the required social studies or math credit.

Other routes

AP and bank programs

School boards must give the credit for AP Business with Personal Finance, and for an approved in-school program run by a financial institution. Dual credit courses can count too.

Topics

What we cover.

Bring your slides, problem sets, and your last midterm. We work from your actual course.

High school · Wisconsin

Where students get stuck.

Compound interest feels abstract

Teens can recite the formula and still not feel why starting at 16 beats starting at 26. We run their own numbers, a summer job paycheck saved for ten years, until the idea sticks.

A pay stub is a wall of codes

Gross pay, withholding, FICA, net pay. Most students meet these words for the first time on a test. We read a realistic stub line by line and then build one from scratch.

Credit sounds like free money

Minimum payments, interest that grows on interest, and scores that follow you for years. We use the credit card payoff calculator so the cost of carrying a balance is a number, not a warning.

For parents

This class is usually your teen's first real contact with money rules, and it is a good moment to talk at home too. Ask what they are learning each week, show them a real bill or bank statement, and let them run one family purchase through a budget. If the class moves fast, or your teen wants to go beyond it, one-on-one sessions follow the teacher's materials and never complete graded work.

How a session works

Diagnosis first. Then the fix.

  1. 01

    Before we meet

    Send me what you're stuck on: a problem set, slides, your last midterm, a practice exam, last week's quiz.

  2. 02

    On Zoom

    You walk me through a problem out loud. It usually takes a few minutes to hear where the reasoning goes sideways. We fix that piece and rebuild from there, so you know why each step works.

  3. 03

    Before we finish

    The real test: a fresh problem with new numbers and different wording, the way a midterm would ask it, and you solve it yourself. I don't complete assignments or hand over answers. You leave able to do the work.

Chi Odogwu seated in a leather chair
Your tutor

Studied it. Worked in it. Now I teach it.

I’m Chi Odogwu. I have a B.S. in Business with a finance specialization from Liberty University, earned summa cum laude in three years, and a Master’s in International Economics and Finance from Brandeis. I tutored IB students in grad school, did valuation and private equity consulting at PwC, taught MBA finance at Florida State, and spent three years as an adjunct professor teaching Business Finance.

Full background

Questions

Before you book.

Does AP Business with Personal Finance count in Wisconsin?

Yes. The law requires school boards to grant the personal finance credit for it.

Is a personal finance class hard?

The ideas are not hard, but the vocabulary and the math in loans, interest and taxes trip students up. Most of the lost points come from setting a problem up wrong, which practice fixes quickly.

Can you tutor my teen for this class online?

Yes. Sessions are one-on-one on Zoom, built around the course your teen is actually taking, and scheduled in your local time.

Will tutoring get in the way of my student's teacher?

No. I work from the teacher's materials and never complete graded work, so sessions support the class instead of replacing it.

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