Analyzing College Students' Finances and How They Were Impacted by COVID-19

Abstract

The introduction of COVID-19 led to a plethora of questions regarding its impact on finances. The purpose of the proposed study is to analyze the finances of college students at Middle Tennessee State University by means of a survey. Doing so will contribute to the knowledge currently being gathered regarding the effect of COVID-19 and will determine if the students in question have indeed advanced their financial understanding and finances in the duration of the ongoing pandemic. The survey for the study was developed using Qualtrics and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) in October 2020. The intention of the survey is to compare the finances of college students attending Middle Tennessee State University both before and after the introduction of COVID-19 as a means to determine if the students have gained more financial understanding due to the financial concerns and assistance that surfaced during the pandemic. The survey is targeted towards three factors: financial literacy, budgeting, and impact of COVID-19 financial assistance.