The role of parents in college students’ financial behaviors and attitudes

This study examined how parents’ teaching and modeling of financial concepts affects college student credit card debt (n = 173). Parental hands-on mentoring of financial skills was most strongly related to lower levels of credit card debt and this relationship was partially mediated by it leading to greater financial delay of gratification and less impulsive credit card purchasing which in turn were related to less problematic credit card use. Having parents who struggled with debt was not significantly related to debt although having parents who avoided talking about finances predicted problematic credit card use. Students’ beliefs that their parents would bail them out of debt were related to lower levels of debt. Financial knowledge and parental verbal instruction appear to have complex relationships to credit card debt.