Abstract
An analysis of College students’ subjective well-being (SWB) and persistence behavior was conducted with an emphasis on financial stress and individuals’ perceptions of financial situation, controlling for a number of health, financial, and demographic factors. Data were taken from a sample of 324 undergraduate students from a major Midwestern university. Results indicated that students experiencing higher reported financial stress scored lower on a measure of SWB, and were also significantly more likely to report difficulty maintaining enrollment or number of academic hours enrolled. Individuals’ financial self-efficacy was positively associated with SWB and negatively associated with reductions in enrolled hours, though was not significant as a predictor of student persistence attitudes. Implications for student well-being and healthy campus initiatives are discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (enacted), H. R. 627, 111th Cong., 1st Session.
All figures in US Dollars.
Alternative specifications were tested with regard to this question. In one case the measure of emotional burden was treated as a continuous scale and OLS was employed. This variable was also analyzed using cumulative logit due to concerns over the safety of assuming a continuous nature to a limited dependent variable. Each of the approaches yielded similar results, thus only the results of the logistic regression were included.
References
Aldana, S. G., & Liljenquist, W. (1998). Validity and reliability of a financial strain survey. Financial Counseling and Planning, 9, 11–19.
Andrews, F. M., Abbey, A., & Halman, L. J. (1991). Stress from infertility, marriage factors, and subjective well-being of wives and husbands. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 32(3), 238–253. doi:10.2307/2136806.
Arnett, J. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55, 469–480. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.5.46.
Aselton, P. (2012). Sources of stress and coping in American college students who have been diagnosed with depression. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, 25(3), 119–123. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6171.2012.00341.x.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191.
Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37(2), 122–147. doi:10.1037//0003-066x.37.2.122.
Berman, J. (2015). Class of 2015 has the most student debt in U. S. history. Retrieved from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/class-of-2015-has-the-most-student-debt-in-us-history-2015-05-08.
Bianco, C. A., & Bosco, S. M. (2002). Ethical issues in credit card solicitation of college students: The responsibilities of credit card companies. Teaching Business Ethics, 6, 45–62. doi:10.1023/A:1014206607573.
Brown, M., Haughwout, A., Lee, D., Scally, J., van der Klaauw, W. (2014). Measuring student debt and its performance. Staff report no. 668. New York: Federal Reserve Bank. Retrieved from https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr668.pdf. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2423377.
CFPB. (2015). Student loan servicing: Analysis of public input and recommendations for reform. Retrieved from http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201509_cfpb_student-loan-servicing-report.pdf.
College Board. (2014). Trends in college pricing. Retrieved from: https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/misc/trends/2014-trends-college-pricing-report-final.pdf.
Corder, K. S., Corder, J. K., & Pattok, T. (2005). College financing and college completion: Using ecological inference to investigate how types of aid received affects retention and graduation outcomes. Retrieved from http://homepages.wmich.edu/~corder/corder_air_2005.pdf_ENREF_8.
Dai, E. (2013). Student loan delinquencies surge. St. Louis: Federal Reserve Bank. Retrieved from https://www.stlouisfed.org/Publications/Inside-The-Vault/Spring-2013/Student-Loan-Delinquencies-Surge.
DeLongis, A., Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1988). The impact of daily stress on health and mood: Psychological and social resources as mediators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(3), 486. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.3.486.
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55(1), 34–43. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.34.
Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2002). Will money increase subjective well-being? Social Indicators Research, 57(2), 119–169. doi:10.1023/A:1014411319119.
Diener, E., Diener, M., & Diener, C. (1995). Factors predicting the subjective well-being of nations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 851–864. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.5.851.
Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 276–302. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.125.2.276.
Drentea, P. (2000). Age, debt, and anxiety. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 41, 437–450. doi:10.2307/2676296.
Drentea, P., & Lavrakas, P. J. (2000). Over the limit: The association among health status, race, and debt. Social Science & Medicine, 50, 517–529. doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(99)00298-1.
Emmons, R. A. (1986). Personal strivings: An approach to personality and subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1058–1068. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.5.1058.
Folkman, S. (1984). Personal control and stress and coping processes: A theoretical analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(4), 839–852. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.46.4.839.
Grable, J. E., & Joo, S. (2006). Student racial differences in credit card debt and financial behaviors and stress. College Student Journal, 40(2), 400–408.
Gutter, M. S., & Copur, Z. (2011). Financial behaviors and financial well-being of college students: Evidence from a national survey. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 32(4), 699–714. doi:10.1007/s10834-011-9255-2.
Haughwout, A., Lee, D., Scally, J., & van der Klaauw, W. (2015). Student loan borrowing and repayment trends, 2015. New York: Federal Reserve Board. Retrieved April 16, 2015 from, http://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/mediaadvisory/2015/Student-Loan-Press-Briefing-Presentation.pdf.
Heckman, S., Lim, H., Montalto, C. (2014). Factors related to financial stress among college students. Journal of Financial Therapy, 5(1), 19–39. doi:10.4148/1944-9771.1063 (article 3).
Hilgert, M. A., Hogarth, J. M., & Beverly, S. G. (2003). Household financial management: The connection between knowledge and behavior. Federal Reserve Bulletin, 89(July), 309–322.
Ishitani, T. T., & DesJardins, S. L. (2002). A longitudinal investigation of dropout from college in the United States. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice, 4(2), 173–201. doi:10.2190/v4en-nw42-742q-2ntl.
St. John, E., Paulsen, M., &, Carter, D (2005). Diversity, college costs, and postsecondary opportunity: An examination of the financial nexus between college choice and persistence for African Americans and Whites. Journal of Higher Education, 76(5), 545–569.
Joo, S. H., Durband, D. B., & Grable, J. (2008). The academic impact of financial stress on college students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice, 10(3), 287–305. doi:10.2190/cs.10.3.c.
Kim, J., Garman, E. T., & Sorhaindo, B. (2003). Relationship among credit counseling clients’ financial well, financial behaviors, financial stressor events, and health. Financial Counseling and Family Planning, 14, 75–87. doi:10.1007/s10834-006-9024-9.
Lapp, W. M. (2010). Behavior models for prosperity: A statistical assessment of savings and behavioral change. EARN Research Brief. San Francisco, CA: Earned Assets Research Network. Retrieved from https://www.earn.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/5_-_Behavioral_Models_for_Prosperity-_A_Statistical_Assessment_of_Savings_and_Behavioral_Change-1.pdf.
Letkiewicz, J., Lim, H., Heckman, S., Bartholomae, S., Fox, J. J., & Montalto, C. P. (2014). The path to graduation: Factors predicting on-time graduation rates. Journal of College Student Retention, 16(3), 351–371. doi:10.2190/cs.16.3.c.
Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O. S. (2006). Financial literacy and planning: Implications for retirement well-being. Working paper no. 1, Pension Research Council, Wharton School. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Lyons, A. C. (2004). A profile of financially at-risk college students. The Journal of Consumer Affairs, 38(1), 56–80. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6606.2004.tb00465.x.
Sallie Mae. (2013). How America pays for college. Retrieved from https://salliemae.newshq.businesswire.com/sites/salliemae.newshq.businesswire.com/files/doc_library/file/Sallie_Mae_Report_-_How_America_Pays_for_College_Report_FINAL_0.pdf.
Manning, R. D., & Kirshak, R. (2005). Credit cards on campus: Academic inquiry, objective empiricism, or advocacy research? NASFAA Journal of Student Financial Aid, 35(1), 39–48.
Mishel, L., Gould, E., & Bivens, J. (2015). Wage stagnation in nine charts. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved from http://www.epi.org/files/2013/wage-stagnation-in-nine-charts.pdf.
Nelson, M. C., Lust, K., Story, M., & Ehlinger, E. (2008). Credit card debt, stress and key health risk behaviors among college students. American Journal of Health Promotion, 22(6), 400–406. doi:10.4278/ajhp.22.6.400.
Northern, J. J., O’Brien, W. H., & Goetz, P. W. (2010). The development, evaluation, and validation of a financial stress scale for undergraduate students. Journal of College Student Development, 51(1), 79–92. doi:10.1353/csd.0.0108.
Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (1993). Review of the satisfaction with life scale. Psychological Assessment, 5, 164–172. doi:10.1037/1040-3590.5.2.164.
Pearlin, L. I., Schieman, S., Fazio, E. M., & Meersman, S. C. (2005). Stress, health, and the life course: Some conceptual perspectives. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 46(2), 205–219. doi:10.1177/002214650504600206.
Perna, L. W. (1998). The contribution of financial aid to undergraduate persistence. Journal of Student Financial Aid, 28(3), 25–40.
Robb, C. A. (2011). Financial knowledge and credit card behavior of college students. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 32(4), 690–698. doi:10.1007/s10834-011-9259-y.
Robb, C. A., Moody, B., & Abdel-Ghany, M. (2011). College student persistence to degree: The burden of debt. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice, 13(4), 431–456. doi:10.2190/cs.13.4.b.
Robb, C. A., & Sharpe, D. L. (2009). Effect of personal financial knowledge on college students’ credit card behavior. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, 20(1), 25–40.
Robb, C. A., & Woodyard, A. S. (2011). Financial knowledge and “best practice” behavior. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, 22(1), 33–46.
Ross, S., Cleland, J., & Macleod, M. J. (2006). Stress, debt and undergraduate medical student performance. Medical Education, 40(6), 584–589. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2929.2006.02448.x.
Rothstein, J., & Rouse, C. E. (2011). Constrained after college: Student loans and early-career occupational choices. Journal of Public Economics, 95(1), 149–163. doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.09.015.
Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Educational Research, 45(1), 89–125. doi:10.2307/1170024.
Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition (2nd Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226922461.001.0001.
Trombitas, K. (2012). Financial stress: An everyday reality for college students. Lincoln, NE: Inceptia. Retrieved from https://www.inceptia.org/PDF/Inceptia_FinancialStress_whitepaper.pdf.
Westefeld, J. S., Homaifar, B., Spotts, J., Furr, S., Range, L., & Werth, J. L. (2005). Perceptions concerning college student suicide: Data from four universities. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 35(6), 640–645. doi:10.1521/suli.2005.35.6.640.
Wong, J. G., Cheung, K. K., Ma, K. K., & Tang, S. W. (2006). Web-based survey of depression, anxiety and stress in first-year tertiary education students in Hong Kong. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 40(9), 777–782. doi:10.1111/j.1440-1614.2006.01883.x.
Worthy, S. L., Jonkman, J., & Blinn-Pike, L. (2010). Sensation seeking, risk-taking, and problematic financial behaviors of college students. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 31(2), 161–170. doi:10.1007/s10834-010-9183-6.
Xiao, J. J., Tang, C., Serido, J., & Shim, S. (2011). Antecedents and consequences of risky credit behavior among college students: Applications and extensions of the theory of planned behavior. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 30(2), 239–245. doi:10.1509/jppm.30.2.239.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
Cliff A. Robb declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Robb, C.A. College Student Financial Stress: Are the Kids Alright?. J Fam Econ Iss 38, 514–527 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9527-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-017-9527-6