Most College Students Cannot Cover A $500 Emergency Expense

Most college students could not cover the repair bill if their car broke down tomorrow. That is the finding of the Trellis Student Financial Wellness Survey. Parenting students were particularly likely to struggle to cover emergency expenses

. The survey was fielded in the fall of 2022 and included responses from over 36,000 students at two-year and four-year colleges and universities. Trellis has been fielding the survey since 2018.

The findings highlight continued concerns that many students are in highly financially precarious situations and even living with various types of basic needs insecurity, particularly food insecurity. Parenting students, who were more likely to be women, Black, and older than non-parenting students, were even more likely to struggle to find $500 to cover an emergency expense.

This financial wellness survey is intended to provide key insights into the financial health of college students around the United States. The survey is not considered nationally representative—colleges may choose to participate—but does include students from two and four-year colleges, with public and private non-profit institutions represented. No for-profits, which tend to enroll disproportionally large numbers of students who are less financially secure, and come from marginalized groups, particularly Black women, chose to participate in the survey. If any for-profit institutions had chosen to participate, the number of economically insecure students may have been higher.

Importantly, finding $500 for an emergency expense was not based on having that money in cash. The survey also asked students if they could use credit to cover an emergency expense. While not ideal, having credit to cushion short-term financial shocks can provide students with additional financial security to bridge short-term crises. Other responses included turning to parents or other family members, selling possessions, or delaying bills. Twelve percent of students at four year-colleges and 17 percent at two-year institutions said they would have no method at all of coming up with $500.

Parenting students were more likely than their non-parenting peers to report needing to sell belongings to make ends meet; they were also more likely to have experienced housing insecurity in the past year. This is unsurprising given that recent research has shown that college is unaffordable for parenting students in all 50 states. Parenting students account for one out of every five college students but often face significant barriers to completing college, particularly if they have children who require childcare.

Just under a quarter of the students who responded to the survey were parenting students; among these students, a quarter said they had missed class one or more times because they could not find childcare. Student parents were also more likely to rely on public assistance programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help ensure they could provide enough food for their children.

The report notes that while it is not uncommon for students to run out of money occasionally, it is troubling when students run out of funds multiple times a year. Twenty percent of respondents said they had run out of money eight or more times during the year. This suggests that a large number of students are living in constant fear of not being able to cover their bills.

The report suggests various approaches colleges can take to improve financial support for students. These include creating partnerships with organizations like Head Start and WIC (which provides support to pregnant and recently postpartum mothers and their children) to support parenting students, providing emergency aid and transit subsidies, giving students better estimates of college costs, and providing student parents with liaison staff to help them better navigate college.

Even with all the financial challenges highlighted by this survey, seventy percent of the students surveyed said they believed college was a good investment in their future. Given the many negative headlines about the cost of college, it is essential to keep that in perspective. Research demonstrates that a college degree is one of the best ways to obtain and maintain financial security.

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