College Board launches AP Business with Personal Finance this fall
college board is launching Business with Personal Finance this fall, making it one of two new career-focused courses for the coming school year. The course is described as rigorous and college-level, and it asks students to think strategically about money, teams and turning ideas into action.
Students who take it will also apply those ideas to their own financial lives, with the course aimed at building confidence and economic agency. College Board is pairing it with Cybersecurity in a broader rollout that gives schools two new options tied to business and career preparation.
David Coleman on business
College Board CEO David Coleman said, "I see business as a new liberal art for our time." He said the course was developed with employers and colleges for the better part of three years, and that the goal is to give students a credential with value for both employers and colleges.
Coleman also said, "Both are rigorous, college-level courses that are deeply practical." He was referring to Business with Personal Finance and Cybersecurity, the two courses College Board is bringing in this fall.
Three years of development
Coleman said, "Students everywhere want to know how to make money and keep it, and business is the most popular college major." He added that just 20 percent of U.S. students take a business course in high school, while access to quality personal finance education remains uneven.
That gap is part of the reason College Board is merging entrepreneurship and financial capability in the new course. Coleman said the curriculum is more like a business school class on entrepreneurship and financial management than Economics, which signals where the course sits academically and how schools may present it to students.
What students may see
Coleman said many students will begin in Business with Personal Finance and go on to take an economics course. For schools, the fall rollout gives counselors and teachers a new course to place alongside existing offerings; for students, it adds a college-level path that ties classroom work to money management and business skills.
The timing also fits a larger shift toward career-focused options. Coleman took the reins of the College Board in 2012, and the new course extends that push into a subject that blends business, finance and practical use. Students considering the class this fall will be choosing among options that now include both business and cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity rollout
Cybersecurity is arriving at the same time as Business with Personal Finance, giving College Board two new career-focused courses this fall. The pairing places a business and money course alongside a technical course, which broadens the kinds of students the program can serve this school year.
