Understanding credit, borrowing money, paying for college, taking out a mortgage — these are skills that make up a major part of adult life, and Beaufort County high school students will all be exposed to these lessons starting next year as part of a state-mandated change to curriculum.

Starting with next year’s incoming freshmen, students will be required to take four social studies courses during their high school career to graduate, including American history, world history, a revised civics course called Founding Principals of the United States and North Carolina: Civic Literacy and a new course on economics and personal finance.

According to BCS 6-12 Curriculum Director Emily Myers, social studies standards from Kindergarten to 12th grade have been revised to ensure coherence with the new required courses at the high school level.

“DPI has done a great job advocating for our schools,” Myers wrote Friday. “The graduation requirements have been updated, which will allow BCS to best meet the needs of our students.  We initially thought that we would be required to phase out the old courses and phase in the new requirements, but the new graduation requirements would allow even current students to benefit from the new course offerings.”

While the personal finance course will give students practical lessons on how to manage their money, it also means condensing American History I and American History II, which now span two semesters, into a single-semester course. Prior to 2012, the two were taught as a single course, and three other states currently divide the course into two semesters.

According to a FAQ prepared by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, this course will cover American history from 1763 to the most recent presidential election. Colonial American history, meanwhile, will be covered in fourth, fifth and eighth grades. Currently, Beaufort County Schools offers personal finance courses at local high schools through its CTE department.

The legislation making the changes was signed into law by N.C. Governor Roy Cooper in July, after receiving bipartisan support in the N.C. House and N.C. Senate. Beaufort County’s legislators, Keith Kidwell and Senator Erica Smith, however, fell on different sides of the issue, with Kidwell voting in favor of the changes and Smith voting against.

“In my business, I see a lot of young people who come in who have no clue how to balance a checkbook or what home economic finances should look like,” Kidwell said. “What percentage of their income should they spend on rent? Should they take out a loan on a car based on what their income is? They don’t know the answers to these questions, which are really basic home math. I think it’s very important we give them the tools to do that.”

Attempts to reach Smith for comment were unsuccessful.

To learn more about the changes to social studies curriculum in North Carolina, visit sites.google.com/dpi.nc.gov/social-studies/home.