Student Loan Burden, Financial Literacy, and Financial Behavior— Evidence From the 2018 FINRA Survey

Abstract

In this paper I study the association between student loan and financial literacy level among households using the National Financial Capability Study (NFCS) data. Results show that respondents with student loans have lower financial knowledge scores compared to respondents that do not have student loans. In addition, both univariate tests and logit regression results show that higher level of financial literacy is related to lower likelihood of taking student loans, and lower likelihood of being late on making student loan payments. These findings suggest that improving financial literacy can potentially help families to make more reasonable student loan decisions.