College students and personal finance: Exploring the relationships among financial well-being, money management practices, and engagement in personal finance education.

摘要

Despite ample evidence of the relative financial illiteracy of students in college, personal finance education remains inconsistent across postsecondary institutions in the United States. Moreover, existing programs and services related to personal finance education have had modest success in attracting student interest and participation. To illuminate possible reasons for the low levels of student involvement in such educational opportunities, this study sought to examine the perceptions of college students toward their own financial well-being, and the degree to which these perceptions predict their money management behaviors and their likelihood to engage in personal finance education. An additional aim of this investigation was to glean the specific needs and preferences students have with regard to personal finance education. Based on survey responses collected from a sample of undergraduate on-campus residents at University of California, Los Angeles, perceptions of financial well-being were found to correlate positively with fiscally prudent behaviors. When controlling for other factors, greater fiscal prudence was also observed among males, students who had taken a personal finance-related course in high school, and those who were responsible for covering a higher proportion of their day-to-day expenses. Meanwhile, lower levels of financial well-being predicted greater engagement in personal finance education. This negative relationship was significantly stronger for South Asian and Underrepresented Asian students in the research sample. Having taken a personal finance course in high school, being a college loan recipient, and greater financial responsibility were additionally associated with engagement in personal finance education.;Findings related to students' needs and preferences for learning about personal finance suggest that students would be most likely to participate in campus-based and individually-oriented programs and services. With regard to their topical preferences, most students wish to learn about investments, credit card policies/charges, and personal credit. While behavior-oriented topics, such as managing debt, controlling impulsive purchases, and cutting expenses did not elicit as much interest, they were selected by significantly more racially underrepresented students, females, and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. These patterns have various implications for practice, which are discussed in the final chapter.