Understanding Students’ Financial Decision-Making Practices: Lived Experience of Pell Grant Recipients in Computing at HSIs

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Student Retention in the Midst of School Exclusion and Patriarchal Whiteness (Table 8)

Abstract

Scholarship programming in STEM is meant to free up student time from paid work to allow students to partake in additional academic activities known to improve retention and student success, such as campus activity engagement, belonging to clubs or teams within the target STEM discipline, or working on campus to increase time on site. Students, however, bring to their college experiences background knowledge, cultural experience, familial capital, and values that relate to finances that may differ from the white, privileged, middle-class mores that shape financial advising in post-secondary institutions. In this study, we describe influences that students’ lived experiences have in deciding issues of funding, work, time allocation, and course taking, and argue for a more nuanced understanding of student experience.

Author

• Sarah Hug, Colorado Evaluation & Research Consulting