In the course of seven years of teaching personal finance to college students, I have had my share of experiences facing a silent audience, unwilling to engage. It is especially difficult to deal with if, on occasion, you have had a group that is totally engaged in the topic with no effort on your part.  This has been a great source of frustration as an educator.  I had trouble understanding why the students would decide to take the class or show up for a workshop on personal finance, and not ask any of the questions that brought them there in the first place? I chalked it up to chemistry, or lack thereof, amongst the group of students in the class. This certainly would explain why the one-off workshops had even less interaction than a class that got to know one another a bit over a period of several weeks.

When teaching personal finance as a class, I repeatedly tweaked the course to encourage participation, eventually giving credit for questions posted on Blackboard, thinking that might be less intimidating than asking them in front of the class. I assured the students that if they had a question, they were likely not the only one needing to ask it. I then worked the questions and the answers or discussion into the routine for the next class meeting. 

I have come to realize over time that there were a few factors at play here.  One was indeed the discomfort in revealing a lack of knowledge.  A second factor proved to be that the students knew so little that they didn't know what questions to ask.  

This year I have been running a parallel series of workshops for two closed group of students: one, a cohort of students in a specific 4-year program, and the other, recruited from a group of students with similar demographic backgrounds, and mostly first generation college students. The students know each other, and are not shy about asking questions.  During my most recent workshop, I decided to start off by asking the students a question myself: “What word first comes to mind when I mention the word ‘money’?” Every response conveyed discomfort and anxiety.  While this group was able to talk it out, the experience led me to consider this anxiety as another factor behind some students' reluctance to engage in the conversation.  Perhaps they fear acknowledging their anxiety.  Perhaps it is just human nature to avoid things that make us uncomfortable.

The level of student anxiety may or may not surprise you.  Having participated in the administration of the 2014 National Student Financial Wellness Survey, I was not surprised.  Over 70% of students surveyed reported feeling stressed about their personal finances (see below).  The results of this survey include research findings on the significant negative impacts this financial stress has on students.  

I have also become familiar in recent months with the work of Sara Goldrick-Raab regarding the startling statistics on food and housing insecurity among college students. Her book, Paying the Price, is based on a study of 3000 students in the Wisconsin public college and university system using Pell Grants and other support.   

Half the students in the study left college without a degree, while less than twenty percent finished within five years. The cause of their problems, time and again, was lack of money.

While ever increasing tuition contributes to the stress, the financial problems are more fundamental. Goldrick-Rabb, a professor at Temple, was lead author of the report on a more recent and much broader survey. The survey of 43,000 students at 66 schools was conducted by Temple University and the Wisconsin HOPE Lab. When the results were made public on April 3, it made national headlines. The key findings are alarming:

            ...thirty-six percent of students at 66 surveyed colleges and universities do not get enough to eat, and a similar number lack a secure place to live.

There is reason for these students to feel stress. Anything we can do as educators to prepare the students before they get to campus will certainly help them to focus on the education, and not on their grumbling stomachs.

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Part of that preparation can include NGPF’s Payback interactive game.

Check out NGPF’s numerous resources at your disposal to teach your students all about Paying for College.

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