Half of recent college graduates in a new study are continuing to rely on financial support from their parents, even many of those who have full-time employment.
The Arizona Pathways to Life for University Students study found 500 of the 1,000 participants looked to their parents for money, and many also were refining their expectations around traditional goals like marriage, family, and home ownership.
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“Taking on part-time jobs, borrowing for graduate school and living at home make sense in a tight labor market. But how long can parents fill the financial gap for their grown children before it impacts their own financial security? Our research suggests that young adults may not be the only ones postponing their goals for financial reasons,” said Joyce Serido, principal investigator with APLUS, in a
press release by one of the study supporters, the National Endowment for Financial Education.
The study tracked the students throughout college and then into their first year as graduates, reporting information at different times throughout the students’ college career.
Researchers said financial instability interfered with young adults’ ability to achieve financial goals, including buying a home and saving money.
“The APLUS survey offers powerful insights into the factors that shape financial attitudes and behavior as young people strive to meet the demands of adult life,” the release quoted Daria Sheehan, senior program officer with the Citi Foundation, another study supporter. “These findings reinforce the importance of building sound money management skills early in life that translate into positive financial behaviors.”
The study pointed to early financial education as having an impact, the report said, shown by three types of participants:
- High-functioning participants (12 percent) maintained "consistently high levels of responsible financial behavior through all waves of the study";
- Rebounding participants (61 percent) started college with moderately responsible financial behaviors that declined by year four and then rebounded after college;
- Struggling participants (26 percent) started school with poor financial behaviors, which declined in school, and then rebounded somewhat after graduation, although they were "still worse than their first year of college and significantly lower than all other participants."
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