Study Finds That U.S. Bank Student Scholarship Program Boosts Financial Wellness

Originally published on U.S. Bank company blog

The U.S. Bank Student Scholarship Program aims to provide college and college-bound students with financial wellness concepts and information at a critical stage of their lives. A new study designed and conducted by Concentrix found that the program is doing exactly that, giving students more confidence and knowledge of their finances.

Students participating in the U.S. Bank scholarship program complete a series of free, online modules covering topics ranging from building credit scores to building emergency savings, and then are entered into a sweepstakes to win up to $14,000 in scholarship funds. The decade-old program has continued to grow in participation each year, with $45,000 in scholarships awarded annually.

“The results of this study validate the benefits of financial education in helping students become financially confident and knowledgeable,” said Kaori Yamada, senior vice president of financial education for U.S. Bank. “We share these learnings with others and invite them to extend access to financial education.”

Here are the key learnings from the study commissioned by U.S. Bank, which evaluated students before and after completing the online modules: 

1. Incentives and scholarships entice students to engage with financial education.
   The financial incentive attached to the scholarship program has proved attractive to students, with almost two in three participants citing it as the main reason they decided to register for the program. The potential to win scholarship money motivated students to enroll in the online modules, exposing them to financial lessons and planning tools they otherwise may have not sought out.
    
2. Financial confidence and knowledge increase significantly with even a small amount of financial education training.
   Less than 10% of respondents said they were confident or knowledgeable about finances before completing any learning modules. This number increased to more than 40% after students completed financial education modules.
    
3. The scholarship program is effective in driving financial wellness in addition to improving financial knowledge.
   After completing a module, students were asked how likely they were to take action to better their financial wellness. Ninety-seven percent of participants said they were likely or very likely to take action based on the information they learned. After participating in the program, more participants said they currently, or plan to, engage in financially healthy behaviors such as having a savings account, building emergency savings, following a budget or building their credit score.
    
4. Students of color who engaged in the program experienced a bigger confidence boost than white students.
   After completing the lessons, almost half of students of color reported feeling confident about managing their finances – a 350% increase over students of color who had not yet completed any of the modules. Financial confidence among students of color exceeded the financial confidence level white students indicated after completing the lessons.

Based on these findings, U.S. Bank is making plans in 2023 to shift its scholarship program to utilize more gamified content that offers shorter, more digestible lessons. In addition, a larger variety of topics will be available. Check back in mid-February to learn more about how U.S. Bank is improving the scholarship: www.usbank.com/scholarship.