Eastern Family Economics and Resource Management Association College Students and Financial Literacy: What They Know and What We Need to Learn (original) (raw)

College Students and Financial Literacy

Previous research focused on college students and their credit card usage. This study examines college students' overall financial management practices using quantitative and qualitative data from a multi-state research project. Specifically, the study investigates how college students acquire financial knowledge and behaviors and the factors that place some students at greater financial risk than others. The findings show that parents play a key role in their children's financial socialization. The results provide important insight into financial education opportunities for students, parents, campus administrators, and financial professionals and educators.

College Students’ Financial Literacy at an Eastern Kentucky Regional University

Atlantic Marketing Journal, 2024

Abstract - Financial literacy is essential knowledge for recent college graduates to be able to manage a stable job, career, and personal wealth. This study examined the financial literacy of 228 college students (49.8% males; 50.2% females) at a regional public university in Eastern Kentucky. The participants were randomly invited to complete a 22-item online financial literacy survey, which was created based on the work of Cude et al. (2006). The survey contents included five demographic questions and 17 five-point Likert scales (1= strongly agree/ always, 5= strongly disagree/ never) to rate participants’ knowledge on investing, saving, budgeting, and credit. The data was collected between mid-October and early December 2022. The authors identified five factors covering personal financial literacy: (1) understanding of investment, (2) understanding of financial risk and budgeting, (3) perceptions of saving and spending, (4) longing for saving and investing, and (5) motivation for learning financial literacy. The results showed that individuals who had taken a finance course had a higher rating in understanding investment, financial risk, and budgeting than those who had not taken a course. Furthermore, those who had taken a financial literacy course received a higher score on the factor--perceptions on saving and spending. This finding suggested increased opportunities to attend financial literacy classes and mock experiences will help students build foundational knowledge and confidence in utilizing practical finance skills. Keywords - Financial literacy, College students, Saving, Financial education, and Personal finance

The state of financial knowledge in college: New evidence from a national survey

2018

Financial literacy has been evaluated in many different surveys of American adults and children. College students are a dynamic population who face unique financial challenges, yet they have not been broadly sampled as part of existing work measuring financial literacy. This is a notable void in the literature given the rapid increase in college prices and the number of students who finance their college investment using loans. The 2015-16 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:16) included, for the first time, a standard set of financial literacy questions as well as a new set of questions measuring awareness of student loan repayment terms. Students demonstrated objectively low levels of financial literacy, but levels were higher among groups with social, demographic, economic, and institutional characteristics that are predictive of success in college. Student borrowers tended to have higher student loan literacy, even if they were part of groups with lower financial literacy. We conclude from this that financial literacy

Financial literacy of university students

7Th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2012

The current financial crisis highlights real problems profoundly related to the level of financial knowledge. Some studies suggest that many individuals, including small business owners, do not have adequate financial skills to be able to handle their finances. The term "financial literacy" summarizes the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to enable recognition and understanding of the foundations of personal finance. Informed and literate individuals are able to make responsible decisions. Our paper presents the preliminary results obtained with the Portuguese StudentFinance2012 survey. A total of 612 university students from seven different institutions agreed to participate and complete the survey. The sample has an average age of 23.67 years and is gender balanced. Students were classified in three course areas such as engineering, business and management, or design and tourism. Most respondents frequent a degree course, being the university mostly a public institution. A majority of our students has solely funded by their parents or family. By analyzing the total amount of financial products, we obtained an average of 2.57 financial products by student. To analyze financial literacy, our study developed measures such students' financial involvement, financial knowledge and parents influence and explore it as a function to issues such as age, gender, course area, course type, type of university and parental funding. The results suggest that the financial involvement of students evolves over time (as age increases, the financial involvement also increases) and confirm significant dependence with demographic variables such as gender, age, or course, among others. For the financial knowledge the results are encouraging, with students to show interesting levels of knowledge. We also identified relations of dependence with age, gender and course, among many others. Parental influence was analyzed by the level of agreement with statements related to the perceptions of the influence and behavior of parents about money, budgeting, saving and paying bills. The main results indicate that parents are a positive influence and that students are experiencing a financial behaviour that integrates the family.

Earlier financial literacy and later financial behaviour of college students

International Journal of Consumer Studies, 2014

This study examined the association of earlier financial literacy and later financial behavior of college students. Financial literacy was measured by both subjective and objective knowledge and financial behaviors were categorized into risky paying and borrowing behaviors.

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES OF COLLEGE STUDENTS , 2018

With mortgage foreclosure rates at an all time high and more than one-million Americans expected to file bankruptcy in 2008, it is safe to conclude that many Americans have overextended themselves with debt. This study tests the hypothesis that many Americans do not have the knowledge, skills or habits essential for effective management of personal finances. This investigation seeks to determine the reasons for financial misconduct and to discover measures that will assist college students in improving financial management practices.

Financial Socialization Family Pathways: Reflections from College Students' Narratives

2011

This study explored 217 college students' narratives about financial socialization experiences in their families. Using a deductive coding and interpretation strategy grounded in existing literature, identified themes and sub-themes provided richer descriptions of financial socialization processes than currently exist. Parental modeling and direct teaching led to both positive and negative young adult behaviors. Coaching and family rules revealed parents' use of authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles to socialize their children about money. Five distinct messages about money communication were identified as well as positive and negative views of parental roles and division of labor related to money management tasks. Implications for continued financial socialization and education during the emerging adulthood phase of development are discussed.

Assessing Changes in the Financial Knowledge of College Seniors

2013

Financial literacy education is increasingly popular. Many public and private entities that deliver such programs seem poised to write new curricula and deliver new programs. However, it is important for a multitude of reasons to know if financial literacy education programs are effective, and, if so, in what ways. Fox, Bartholomae, and Lee (2005) described most financial literacy education programs as “making some effort toward evaluation” (p. 203). However, they also noted that there are “few clear commonalities in the approach taken” (p. 203), perhaps because of the difficulty in determining the most effective evaluation methods. It is clear that financial literacy educators strive to design programs that can demonstrate an impact, generally changes in knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, or some combination of the three. What is not clear, however, is how to select a method to assess the impact of financial education programs. This paper focuses on evaluating financial knowledge cha...