The Benefits of Engaging College Students in Financial Education Programs and Solutions

Considering the growing importance of financial education among college-aged students, the video competitions are a great and innovative way to enhance financial literacy for young adults. We ask young adults to create videos that will resonate with their peers. The video competition continues to grow in stature each year, which suggests there is a real need for this kind of financial education program.

Tony Davis is Community & Economic Development Director at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he focuses on community partnerships, economic development and regional analysis. Prior to joining the Bank in 2006, Mr. Davis was a program officer at Enterprise Community Partners. Mr. Davis earned a master’s in international affairs from Ohio University, a master’s in urban planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s from Georgia Southern University.

A Case Study:  Video Competitions

The mounting body of research underscores the importance of greater financial literacy among college students.  We also have seen that when the students, as key stakeholders, are involved in the development of relevant financial education programs, their interest and success is meaningfully greater.  While the student and campus populations differ among institutions of higher education, and while their needs are therefore unique and diverse, engaging college students in the solution improves outcomes.

Greater financial literacy in the college context is centered around improving a student’s financial knowledge, building money management skills, and improving confidence and success in one’s financial related decisions. These elements, taken together, comprise a student’s overall financial capability, an attribute that is in great need of attention and nurturing in colleges across the country and, indeed, throughout the world.  Moreover, the recent economic volatility and uncertainty has put an even greater weight on the shoulders of college students to navigate personal and family financial matters in these challenging times.

So how can we best engage college students to embrace financial education and to improve their financial literacy?  A case study has proven effective.  Specifically, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been administering Financial Awareness Video Festivals, which call upon college and university students to create videos, aimed primarily at young adults, on critical financial capability topics, such as how to build credit.

The benefits of this type of program are numerous and include these key outcomes, among others:

• Financial Awards to Winners:  The winning videographers receive a financial award, which encourages greater participation among college students.  Increased participation in the program is important since a major goal of this program is to engage college students in focusing on the topic of financial literacy…the more students focused on the topic (whether or not these individuals actually win) promotes greater awareness and understanding of the substantive financial capability topic on which the students are focusing in developing their videos.  Of course, the financial award to the winners also is beneficial to them personally, and simultaneously builds their confidence and self-esteem as a winner of highly regarded financial education program.

• Greater Understanding of Financial Topics:  College students learn about important financial education topics.  For example, in one of the recent video competitions, the winning video encouraged responsible borrowing and explained the dangers of taking on too much debt.  The college students all learned more about credit, debt and related issues through the process of developing their videos, so the program’s objective of teaching students more about this topic was successfully achieved.

• Widespread Visibility of Videos:  Another objective of the program is to teach other individuals (i.e. individuals beyond the video creators) about financial education topics so that financial literacy is improved to the greatest extent.  This goal is accomplished by airing the winning videos in movie theaters and by further distributing the videos to schools, nonprofit groups and financial literacy organizations.  In doing so, the videos receive broad viewing and have an important impact in raising the level of financial capability among the videos viewers.

Given the substantial importance of improved financial capability among college students, and the fact that engaging college students in the development of financial education programs improves outcomes, video competitions are a great way to enhance financial literacy among the college student population.  While the overall economy continues to place a great burden on young people, and while college students are challenged to manage an ever increasing range of individual, family, school and other undertakings, we can improve their financial capability by developing and launching video and other programs that teach discipline, responsibility, inventiveness and….great financial capability.