Student Financial Wellness Survey Report. Spring Report

There is growing recognition that the interplay of student collegiate finances and academic performance influences key student outcomes like retention and graduation. Students experiencing high levels of stress related to finances and meeting basic needs may struggle to reach their academic potential. The Spring 2018 implementation of the Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) captures the attitudes, perspectives, competencies, and self-reported financial behaviors of over 6,000 students from 12 colleges and three states. Student respondents attended public universities, private colleges, and community colleges that range in size from more than 40,000 students to under 1,000. Trellis Research, a department within Trellis Company, designed and implemented the SFWS to document the financial well-being of postsecondary students at participating schools and to inform discussions about college affordability, student debt, and financial wellness at the campus level and among policymakers. The analysis begins with an examination of (1) Student Financial Security which reports and the levels of stress students feel over money matters. Sometimes money anxieties reflect the uncertainty students experience when trying to meet basic human needs like access to food and shelter. The SFWS provides valuable information on these experiences in the (2) Basic Needs section. The next section, (3) Paying for College and Student Debt, inventories the ways students finance their education and how those methods are understood and felt by students. The final section reports on student (4) Perceptions of Institutional Support, i.e., the extent to which students believe that colleges, faced with competing demands for resources, are empathetic and responsive to the financial needs of their students.