Office of Student Life

Center for the Study of Student Life

Study on Collegiate Financial Wellness

The Study on Collegiate Financial Wellness (SCFW), previously titled the National Student Financial Wellness Study, is a multi-institutional survey of college students that examines the financial attitudes, practices and knowledge of students from all types of institutions of higher education across the United States via an online survey. Topics covered by the survey include: financial education, financial management behaviors, financial self-efficacy, financial stress and optimism, sources to pay for college, student loans and consumer debt.

Three multi-institutional administrations were conducted in 2014, 2017 and 2020 with over 75,000 total participants. While no future administrations of the study are planned, we are continuing to publish briefs and manuscripts using SCFW data. If you are interested in using the multi-institutional dataset for a project, please complete the request form here: go.osu.edu/scfwdata

If you have additional questions, please email us at scfw@osu.edu.

Research Reports and Briefs

2020 Research Reports and Briefs

2017 Research Reports and Briefs

2014 Research Reports and Briefs

Publications

General Financial Wellness

Baker, A. R. (2019). Implications of financial concerns for college goal commitment among undergraduate students in the United States. Social Psychology of Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-018-9467-5

Letkiewicz, J. C., Lim, H., Heckman, S., & Montalto, C. (2019). Parental financial socialization: Is too much help leading to debt ignorance among college students? Family & Consumer Sciences Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/fcsr.12341

Shaulskiy, S., Duckett, K., Kennedy-Phillips, L., & McDaniel, A. (2015). Exploring differences in college student financial wellness by institution type. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1080/19496591.2015.1035382

Letkiewicz, J., Lim, H., Heckman, S., Bartholomae, S., Fox, J., & Montalto, C. P. (2014). The path to graduation: Factors predicting on-time graduation rates. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, & Practice. https://doi.org/10.2190/CS.16.3.c

Heckman, S., Lim, H. & Montalto, C. P.  (2014). Factors related to financial stress among college students. Journal of Financial Therapy. https://doi.org/10.4148/1944-9771.1063

Lim, H., Heckman, S., Letkiewicz, J., & Montalto, C. P. (2014). Financial stress, self-efficacy and financial help-seeking behavior of college students. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1048681

Student Loans

Baker, A. R. & Montalto, C. (2019). Student loan debt and financial success: Implications for academic performance. Journal of College Student Development. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2019.0008

Montalto, C. P., Phillips, E. L., McDaniel, A., & Baker, A. R. (2019). College student financial wellness: Student loans and beyond. Journal of Family and Economic Issues. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2019.0008

Fox, J. J., Bartholomae, S., Letkiewicz, J., & Montalto, C. P. (2017). College student debt and anticipated repayment difficulty. Journal of Student Financial Aid.
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1151786

Population-Specific

Li, Y., Zuiker, V. S., Mendenhall, T. J., & Montalto, C. P. (2021). Parental financial socialization, financial experiences, and financial behaviors: Comparing Asian American and international Asian college students. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, JFCP-19-00008. https://doi.org/10.1891/JFCP-19-00008

Rehr, T. I. & Regan, E. R. (2020). An exploratory analysis of financial wellness of trans-spectrum college students. Journal of LGBT Youth. https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2020.1762147

White, K. J. (2020). Financial stress and the relative income hypothesis among Black college students. Contemporary Family Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-019-09531-8

White, K., Watkins, K., McCoy, M., Muruth, B., & Byram, J.L. (2020). How financial socialization messages relate to financial management, optimism and stress: Variations by race. Journal of Family & Economic Issues. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09704-w

McCoy, M.A., White, K.J. and Love, K. (2019). Investigating the financial overconfidence of student-athletes. Sport, Business and Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBM-10-2018-0091

Regan, E. & McDaniel, A. (2019). Examining DACA students' financial experiences in college. Educational Researcher. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19875452

Fulk, M., White, K. J., & Serpa, S. (2018). Exploring racial differences in financial socialization and related financial behaviors among Ohio college students. Cogent Social Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2018.1514681