Student Financial Wellness Survey: Fall 2018 Semester Results. National Aggregate Report

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.