Financial literacy education to college students in the U.S.

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this extended editorial is to document the status of personal finance course offerings at universities and colleges in the U.S. Design/methodology/approach With the assistance of generative AI tools, data on personal finance courses offered at universities and colleges in the U.S. were collected. The course dataset was merged with a dataset compiled by Carnegie Mellon Foundation with institutional characteristics. Findings Results demonstrate that 14% of the higher education institutions in the U.S. offer personal finance courses for credits. Among them, institutions that are very large, public, highly research active, with low access and having students with higher earnings after graduation are most likely to offer personal finance courses among comparable groups. In addition, land grant, regional public, community engagement and with medical center universities are more likely to offer personal finance courses, compared to their counterparts. Among personal finance courses offered, most are for undergraduate students, the most common credit hours are three, the most common course title is “personal finance” or a title including a phrase of “personal finance,” and the most commonly offering unit is college of business administration. Originality/value To the author's knowledge, this is the first attempt to provide an overview of personal finance offerings at universities and colleges in the U.S. based on a unique, comprehensive dataset.