Are Financial Education Programs Meeting the Needs of Financially Disadvantaged Consumers?

NFI Working Paper No. 2007-WP-02

28 Pages Posted: 14 May 2007

See all articles by Angela Lyons

Angela Lyons

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Yunhee Chang

University of Mississippi

Date Written: January 2007

Abstract

This paper uses data collected from a retrospective pre-test to investigate the impact that a financial education program has on participants' financial behaviors. Specifically, we compare program impact across participants with varying levels of financial competency prior to the program and examine whether the program is meeting the educational needs of those it was designed to target - namely, financially disadvantaged consumers. The findings show that the program benefited all of the participants and the greatest improvement in financial behavior was observed for those who reported lower levels of financial ability prior to the program. The findings offer important practical information to consumer educators, program developers, and financial counselors.

Keywords: financial education, behavior change, disadvantaged consumers

Suggested Citation

Lyons, Angela and Chang, Yunhee, Are Financial Education Programs Meeting the Needs of Financially Disadvantaged Consumers? (January 2007). NFI Working Paper No. 2007-WP-02, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=985652 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.985652

Angela Lyons (Contact Author)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ( email )

421 Mumford Hall 1301 W Greogry Dr
Urbana, IL 61801
United States
217-418-6086 (Phone)

Yunhee Chang

University of Mississippi ( email )

Oxford, MS 38677
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
245
Abstract Views
1,400
Rank
226,885
PlumX Metrics