Some Aspects about Financial Knowledge of Undergraduate Students

Abstract

The purpose of study is to measure the level of financial literacy of accounting students at the Universidad Veracruzana; campus Mocambo, considering that financial education is the knowledge that people have on financial issues in order to solve everyday problems regarding financial management. The variables analyzed include age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, learning styles and student’s perceptions on financial services, the way they take care of their money and their knowledge of five key financial issues. Three hypotheses were raised, therefore, in order to test H1 we performed a factorial analysis with an extracted principal component; to H1.a the statistical procedure of linear correlation of Pearson r and t test are applied, and to H2 a Z test is performed. Although the theory suggests that the level of higher education gives the student a better understanding of the financial issues, this research however, proves otherwise. In fact, the range of “excellent money management” is below 50%. The findings suggest that there is no a good level of financial literacy in the population studied. This fact is contrary to expectations, because the student who studies public accountant is expected to have financial knowledge in these subjects, all this, in considering the subjects which integrates the curriculum related to the field of finance. Therefore this finding should be an important indicator for the academic authorities of the Universidad Veracruzana for corrective actions in this respect.