Search

Higher education leaders are looking for high impact ways to improve retention and graduation rates in a climate of austere budgets. Increasingly, higher education sees the interplay of finances and academic performance as a key driver of student success. Across the nation, measurable improvements in student success outcomes are observed when students receive a combination of support services and financial resources that help address the unique financial challenges facing many college students. More colleges and universities want to better understand the state of financial wellness for their students to inform strategic planning and to pin a baseline for comparisons after implementing initiatives. Trellis' Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) informs discussions about college affordability, student debt, and financial wellness at the campus level and among policy-makers. This report details findings from more than 38,000 undergraduate student respondents from 78 colleges and universities in 20 states. While not nationally representative, student respondents attended public universities, private colleges, and community colleges that range in size from fewer than 700 students to greater than 55,000 students. This report presents results for 2-year and 4-year institutions (private and public institutions combined) separately. Respondents from public 2-year institutions accounted for a disproportionate amount of the total sample, and these students experience significant differences in financial wellness. The appendices of this report contain response frequencies to every question in the survey (broken out by school sector), select findings from cross-tabulations of survey responses, descriptions of sample characteristics and representativeness, and detailed methodology. [For the 2018 report, see ED601250.]

The Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) is a self-reported, online survey that seeks to document the financial well-being and student success indicators of postsecondary students across the nation. This brief contains key findings and take-aways from the analysis of SFWS data by school sector. Key findings include: (1) Community college students are more likely to feel financial obligations to their families, and report less financial support from their families; (2) Community college students were far more likely -- by almost 30 percentage points -- to say they work twenty or more hours a week at their job; and (3) While food security varied little across school sectors. Housing security was somewhat higher among community college students than their counterparts at four-year institutions.

Higher education leaders are looking for high impact ways to improve retention and graduation rates in a climate of austere budgets. Increasingly, higher education sees the interplay of finances and academic performance as a key driver of student success. Across the nation, measurable improvements in student success outcomes are observed when students receive a combination of support services and financial resources that help address the unique financial challenges facing many college students. More colleges and universities want to better understand the state of financial wellness for their students to inform strategic planning and to pin a baseline for comparisons after implementing initiatives. Trellis' Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) informs discussions about college affordability, student debt, and financial wellness at the campus level and among policymakers. This report details findings from more than 17,500 undergraduate student respondents from 58 colleges and universities in 12 states. Student respondents attended public universities, private colleges, and community colleges that range in size from fewer than 500 students to greater than 55,000 students. Appendices are included in this report that contain response frequencies to every question in the survey, select findings from cross-tabulations of survey responses, descriptions of sample characteristics and representativeness, and detailed methodology.

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.

The rising cost of attending college creates a financial challenge for most students, many of whom must take out student loans to pursue their education goals. Whether or not they earn a degree, these students will leave school with the burden of managing student debt. How well they manage this complex process may shape their personal finances for decades to come. The perceptions of college financial aid administrators as they engage with students tackling the debt dilemma are at the heart of this report. Based on a national survey of 916 student aid professionals, this report also examines how schools deliver the required counseling that accompanies federal student loans. Trellis collaborated with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board of Governors) on the first in-depth survey of financial aid administrators' experience with student loan counseling.

Borrowing student loans can be confusing and intimidating, enough so that these feelings can influence how students go to college or whether they even enroll at all. Colleges have a responsibility to provide loan counseling to federal student loan borrowers--which, when done intently, can produce a potentially clarifying and empowering experience. The schools highlighted in this report (the fourth in a series of five from TG Research) have chosen to make extra efforts to make loan counseling more meaningful and effective: (1) Baldwin Wallace University; (2) Broward College; (3) El Paso Community College; (4) Northern Virginia Community College; (5) Ohio State University--Main Campus; (6) SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry; (7) University of South Florida--Main Campus; and (8) Western Technical College. [For the related reports, "Informed or Overwhelmed? A Legislative History of Student Loan Counseling with a Literature Review on the Efficacy of Loan Counseling," see ED579985; "From Passive to Proactive: Understanding and Improving the Borrower Experience with Online Student Loan Exit Counseling. Research Report," see ED579880; "A Time to Every Purpose: Understanding and Improving the Borrower Experience with Online Student Loan Entrance Counseling. Research Report," see ED579881; and "Effective Counseling, Empowered Borrowers: An Evidence-Based Policy Agenda for Informed Student Loan Borrowing and Repayment. Research Report," see ED579879.]

This report (the first in a series of five) explores congressional efforts to mitigate that risk and encourage informed borrowing by enacting statutes related to student loan counseling. After introducing the relevant contemporary policy context, it examines how federal rules governing student loan counseling evolved over time to embrace online counseling while expanding the list of specifically mandated topics. It also reviews literature relevant to financial counseling to outline the key considerations for effective student loan counseling. Considering the counseling statutes in light of these principles, the report suggests that mandated counseling efforts suffer from overly prescriptive legislation that does not properly account for borrower's needs and circumstances. Three appendices are included. [For the related reports, "From Passive to Proactive: Understanding and Improving the Borrower Experience with Online Student Loan Exit Counseling. Research Report," see ED579880; "A Time to Every Purpose: Understanding and Improving the Borrower Experience with Online Student Loan Entrance Counseling. Research Report," see ED579881; "Above and Beyond: What Eight Colleges Are Doing to Improve Student Loan Counseling. Research Report," see ED579872; and "Effective Counseling, Empowered Borrowers: An Evidence-Based Policy Agenda for Informed Student Loan Borrowing and Repayment. Research Report," see ED579879. This report was written with the assistance of Chris Fernandez, Carla Fletcher, and Jeff Webster.]

Developmental education is integral to higher education in the United States. In academic year (AY) 2011-12, about one-third of all first-year undergraduates and 40 percent of first-year community college students were enrolled in at least one developmental course (NPSAS:12). Generally, students who fail to achieve adequate scores on placement exams must first take more basic coursework (often in math, reading, or writing) before moving on to regular, credit-bearing coursework. Developmental education is far more prevalent in the two-year public college sector, especially at community colleges. In AY 2011-12, community colleges enrolled about half of all first-year students and 65 percent of all first-year students who took developmental education coursework (NPSAS:12). Many four-year institutions (sometimes acting on their own initiative but often responding to changes in higher education policy at the state level) have either stopped admitting students who fail to demonstrate college-level proficiency or are channeling such students into developmental coursework at local community colleges (Jacobs, 2012). Also, given rising tuition prices at four-year institutions, more underprepared students may be turning voluntarily to less expensive community colleges for developmental education. Along with many higher education organizations, the White House has made it a major initiative to promote college attainment and raise completion rates. One way to do this may be by encouraging more underprepared students to enroll in postsecondary education through a developmental path and/or by ensuring that more students who take developmental education coursework graduate with a degree. However, such an approach entails certain risks that must be assessed. What if students who take developmental courses end up incurring more student debt? Worse yet, what if these students tend to borrow more but leave school before earning a credential? Depending on the answers to questions like these, the developmental system and the push for more degree attainment could do more harm than good. To explore these questions, this paper analyzed national survey data gathered by the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. Findings of this analysis, largely belie the assumption that developmental education creates a significant academic and financial drag on students. These findings include: (1) The population of students enrolled in developmental coursework at community colleges do not differ from students who are not required to take the courses; (2) Students in developmental courses do not borrow more than their peers; and (3) Many community college students who take a single developmental course achieve better academic outcomes relative to those who take none. The remainder of this paper will explain and expand on these and other findings of research into NCES data, providing a short discussion at the end of implications for policy and future research.