Students' Financial Illiteracy and Institutional Efforts for Financial Literacy at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Exploratory Study

摘要

I argue that a considerable amount of the student population at historically black institutions are financially illiterate based upon the lack of financial facilitation offer to the students while they are matriculating through their perspective institutions. Due to this lack of facilitation, the students begin to engage in negative financial practices due to their low awareness of proper financial management. The evidence of financial illiteracy is the increasing amount of loan defaults from recent graduates and students unable to remain financially stable while in enrolled at their institutions. Therefore, the purpose of this exploratory study was to understand the influences of financial illiteracy on students' development at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected using the Jump$tart questionnaire and individual interviews respectively. The data was analyzed and five themes (two from the quantitative data and three from the qualitative data) emerged. All in all, the data revealed that while institutions are making efforts to combat financial illiteracy and its effects on student development, unfortunately there remains the need for an increased financial awareness of student within these institutions.