More high schools are requiring financial-literacy classes. The pandemic may have played a key role.

The number of high-school students required to receive personal-finance instruction before they graduate is about to increase substantially — and bleak early-pandemic memories could be one factor driving the surge, some financial-literacy experts say.

“The pandemic really pulled the cover off the fact that so many Americans really had no financial resilience, and that really opened people’s eyes,” said Nan Morrison, the president and CEO of the Council for Economic Education.

“The…