Kansas Financial Literacy Statistics
The Kansas Financial Educators Council (KFEC) collects accurate data, carries out research, and publishes up-to-date statistics that illustrate the current financial health of Kansans. Those statistics are presented and maintained on this webpage. We curate these data to support researchers, policymakers, community advocate groups, and others who promote and implement financial literacy education policy at the state level. Creating and maintaining this website represents one way in which the KFEC contributes to the financial wellness cause in the Sunflower State and across the country.
Cost of Financial Illiteracy Survey
Kansans report that lack of financial knowledge carries a high cost, according to the NFEC’s most recent survey. Participants across the state responded to the single question: “During the past year, about how much money do you think you lost because you lacked knowledge about personal finances?” The results are shown below. Since 2017, the NFEC has conducted this annual survey, consistently revealing that the average individual cost of financial illiteracy approaches or exceeds $1,000 per person – with estimated national losses reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars each year, and losses in the hundreds of millions across Kansas.
Cost of Financial Illiteracy
$0 – $499
$500 – $999
$1,000 – $2,499
$2,500 – $9,999
$10,000 +
Financial Vulnerability in Kansas
Food insecurity and housing insecurity are the two most significant measures of financial vulnerability in the United States. In Kansas, 1 in every 7 people is facing hunger, according to the latest data from Feeding America, a nonprofit that tracks food insecurity in the nation. That represents 410,760 individuals, of whom 126,260 are children. The annual amount needed to close the financial gap to provide adequate food for these hungry Kansans is close to $267 million.
Data from the World Population Review (WPR) indicate that a total of 2,793 Kansas residents were facing housing insecurity in 2024, a 9% proportion of the state population. The WPR defines homelessness as “living in a temporary shelter or transitional housing or sleeping in a place not meant for habitation (like an abandoned building).” Although the number of unhoused Kansans is relatively low compared with many other U.S. states, the figure has increased by 32.3% since 2007.
Data Characterizing the Financial Situations of Kansans
Average Total Consumer Debt
As of 2025, total consumer debt in the U.S. had exceeded $18 trillion – a clear indicator that many Americans carry debt burdens that severely limit their financial progress. Taking a look at the Kansas situation, research from Experian reports that the average total debt per consumer in the state was $80,485 in 2025. That estimate had decreased modestly (-0.2%) from the previous year, and was well below the national average of $104,755.
Specific Categories of Debt
When investigating specific types of debt, we find that among Kansas residents with student loan balances, the average owed was $32,578 in 2026, as reported by the World Population Review. Data from WalletHub show that the average Kansas credit card debt per user in 2025 was $6,631. Additional statistics from the World Population Review indicate that Kansans owed an average of $4,890 in auto loan debt as of 2024 – a figure that probably has increased year by year.
Data on Kansas Financial Literacy Education and Legislation
The National Education Association (NEA) issues periodic reports listing the number of schools, teachers, and student enrollments per U.S. state in a given academic year. The most recent report was published in September 2025. According to the data, Kansas had 286 operating public school districts in the 2023-2024 school year, with a total student enrollment of 484,805. The total teacher count for the state was 35,011, meaning the student-to-teacher ratio was 13.8:1.
Financial literacy legislation has been in place since 2024 mandating high school students to complete a standalone personal finance course as a graduation requirement. In addition, the Kansas Statute, Article 32 states, “the state board of education shall develop state curriculum standards for personal financial literacy, for all grade levels, within the existing mathematics curriculum or another appropriate subject-matter curriculum.” These standards are incorporated into the Business, Family and Consumer Sciences, Mathematics, and Social Studies strands. The adopted statute also makes provision for testing students’ competence in financial literacy, mandating that “the state board of education shall include questions relating to personal financial literacy in the statewide assessments for mathematics or social studies.” However, precisely how personal finance concepts are tested in the statewide assessments remains unclear.
Article 32 of the Kansas Statute also provides for the creation and maintenance of a Financial Literacy Website that provides education and resources to Kansans.