| The financial context of American postsecondary education has come under increased scrutiny in policy circles and media outlets, covering a wide range of topics such as the role of colleges as stimuli in local economies to the fierce competition among universities for scientific research funding. However, no single concept has received more media attention than the financial barrier to attending college, both because this barrier has risen significantly in recent years and because these costs exacerbate inequalities in social and economic opportunity. However, the current body of academic research in this area contains three significant shortcomings: most research consists of restrictive hypothesis testing rather than an ecological analysis of students' overall financial lives, most studies stem from a quantitative-only analysis methods, and most works examine only traditionally-aged students on four-year campuses. This dissertation begins to fill these gaps, by looking at students' financial experiences more broadly, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, and examining both traditionally- and nontraditionally-aged students on two-year and four-year campuses. The results suggest that (1) the relationship between financial knowledge and financial behavior is heavily dependent on the behavior in question, (2) external influences play a larger role that financial knowledge or financial attitudes in the financial decision-making process, and (3) the effects of attending different types of institutions were revealed more fully in interviews than on surveys. These findings suggest that pursuing different types of research is necessary if academics hope to paint an accurate portrait of the financial burdens being faced by college students. |
