Student Loan Debt and Financial Stress: Implications for Academic Performance
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Connects with: @archuleta2013 @heckman2014 @northern2010
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baker2019 - p. 115
Trends in student borrowing and financial stress vary between racial and ethnic groups and by gender, pointing to possible inequities in financial support for college.
baker2019 - p. 116
An online survey was distributed to a random sample of 5,000 undergraduate students enrolled at a large Midwestern public university in Fall 2014.
baker2019 - p. 116
Grade Point Average. Cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) were collected from student records at 2 time points: the semester prior to taking the survey (prior GPA) and 1 year later (post GPA).
baker2019 - p. 116
Financial Stress. Three items assessed financial stress: general financial stress, stress over monthly expenses, and stress over paying for school. For each item respondents were asked to rate their overall level of agreement to a statement from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). All three items demonstrated strong positive correlations (r = .63 to r = .68) and good internal consistency (α = .85). An overall financial stress score was computed as the average of students’ responses. The resulting scale was converted into a z score with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1 prior to being used in the predictive models.
baker2019 - p. 117
Covariates in the model included the following self-reported variables: gender, race/ethnicity (White, Student of Color), first-generation college student status, age (categorized as traditional if 18–23 and nontraditional if 24+ years old), years enrolled in college, and employment during the academic year (not employed, part time, full time).