Students Don’t Know How to Plan Budgets, Survey Finds

According to the findings of a recent survey by ifs University College, many young people start university with no knowledge of how to plan a budget.

Students Don’t Know How to Plan Budgets, Survey Finds

Students Don’t Know How to Plan Budgets, Survey Finds

This autumn, a record number of 426,000 students enrolled onto a course at university but the survey discovered that just 26 per cent of the 17 to 18 year old respondents had ever planned a budget.

The survey findings also showed that approximately 70 per cent of teenagers will leave education without any formal financial education, at a time when they take on great financial independence such as student loans, mortgages and managing their finances.

When the respondents were questioned about salary expectations, the males in the survey appeared to have the highest aspirations, with 30 per cent revealing that they expect to be earning a minimum of £40,000 per year, as opposed to just one fifth of the female respondents.

The ifs University College said that irrespective of the formal introduction of financial education into the UK’s national curriculum, fewer students are learning about finance in school during their GCSEs.

The researchers found that females are less likely to receive any financial education in school or college, with approximately 25 per cent saying that they are currently receiving tuition in managing personal finances, as opposed to 36 per cent of the males in the survey.

The ifs University College’s young persons’ money index – which explores the attitudes towards money and personal finance – surveyed more than 2,000 teenagers to arrive at its conclusions.

The survey also discovered that many students use and hold financial services and products but are still dependant on their parents for the selection of them.

Of the teenagers in the survey, nearly 10 per cent admitted that they do not have any interactions with their bank, which in turn increases the risk of financial exclusion. In the wider world, the use of internet and mobile banking is growing.

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