Emerging Adults

College graduates earn, on average, about $23,000 more per year than those with only a high school diploma. For college students, completing their degree on time is often helpful for securing a stable livelihood and for families to achieve financial well-being. Despite these benefits, many students struggle with significant financial pressures such as rising tuition, housing costs, and living expenses, which can jeopardize their ability to finish college.[1] Financial stress not only affects academic performance but can also directly lead to dropping out. With rising tuition and reduced financial aid, many are forced to rely on loans to pay for their education,[2] which greatly increases the difficulty of graduating on time.

If you’re a college student, chances are you’ve felt stressed about money at some point. Whether it’s worrying about student loans, stretching your paycheck to cover rent, or just figuring out how to pay for groceries and gas, financial stress can feel overwhelming. And you’re not alone—studies show financial stress is one of the top challenges college students face. The good news? You don’t have to figure it all out by yourself. Financial counseling, something many students don’t even realize their campus offers, can be a game-changer. A study by Dr. Sonya Britt Lutter and colleagues examined the impact financial stress has on college students and the role of counseling services in addressing this issue.1 They found that not only is financial stress widespread, but seeking help through counseling reduces that stress and improves money management skills over time. In other words, talking to someone who understands both the emotional and practical side of money can give students the tools and confidence to stop feeling like they’re drowning.

You’ve heard of finding your identity in college—figuring out your values, goals, and even your sense of self. But have you ever thought about your financial identity? It’s more than just your bank account balance or budgeting skills. Financial identity is about how you see yourself in relation to money—how confident, capable, and responsible you feel when it comes to earning, spending, and saving. And for emerging adults, it turns out this piece of identity is a lot more powerful than we may realize. In a 2023 study, researchers Dr. Brandan Wheeler and Dr. Cecilia Brooks looked at how money lessons you learn from classes like consumer economics or family finance, and from your own family and life experiences, shape financial identity and well-being.¹ In other words, how do the money lessons you learn—and how you learn those lessons—affect who you believe you are financially? And how does that financial self-image impact how well you handle your money? Their findings can help all of us better understand the emotional and developmental side of money, especially during the critical years of emerging adulthood.

Welcome! Today, I want to take you on a journey about how emerging adults navigate specific aspects of marriage preparation, with the help of Matthew Saxey and colleagues.1 I specifically want to target financial attitudes and beliefs and how they might impact an emerging adult’s marriage preparation and financial well-being. Emerging adulthood is a time of exploration and change during which values and beliefs are shaped and solidified. It also tends to be a time where people remain highly moldable as if the clay has yet to harden. One belief currently circulating among many emerging adults is the notion that financial barriers limit their ability to get married or their capacity to afford or be ready for marriage. In other words, some emerging adults think marriage should be put off until later in their future because they’re not financially ready for marriage yet. But do beliefs about financial barriers to marriage actually impact an emerging adult’s preparation (debt reduction and asset gain)?

You’ve probably heard that love can change you—but did you know it can also change your money habits? That’s exactly what Dr. Joyce Serido and her colleagues sought to find out. Over four years, they followed college students to see how the people closest to them—parents and romantic partners—shaped the way they thought about and handled money.1 In this article, I’ll break down what the study discussed, why these findings matter, and how you can use them to improve both your money habits and your relationships.

When I was growing up, I couldn’t wait to be an adult. Now that I am one, I often find myself wondering what being an adult really means. Do we wake up one day and feel like we are an adult? Or is it something that develops as we go through adult-like experiences? To answer these questions, let's examine the concept of adult identity.

Six feet apart, face masks, online learning, and social isolation—these are some of the common experiences people faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, while some also experienced sickness and the death of loved ones. Community lockdown, widespread job insecurity, rampant financial stress, and relational conflict were also trademarks of this unique time in history, which offers to teach emerging adults and the rising generation some profound lessons—among them, the answer to how changes in financial stress can impact relational wellbeing.

Financial socialization is like preparing for and hiking a steep mountain for the first time: daunting and unfamiliar at first. Financial socialization is the process of achieving financial capability; in other words, it is the journey of gaining knowledge, skills, and behavior related to effectively managing resources and making financial decisions.1 While hiking, like during financial socialization, you may need guidance from others—or hiking buddies—to know the best way forward. Additionally, there may be forks in the road that require turning to trail guides for assistance. With the right gear—or right financial knowledge and guidance—emerging adults can confidently face their financial future, like reaching the mountain summit. Dr. Melissa Curran and colleagues highlight three key roles played in the sharing of financial knowledge during this adventure: the role of parents aka “trail guides,” partners aka “hiking buddies,” and the personal role you take to guide themself.2

Can money buy happiness? This question has fascinated economists, scientists, and the imaginations of people like you and me throughout much of human history. But only in the last decade have researchers made headway in this long-awaited answer. Their response? For some, money helps; for others, it doesn’t make much of a difference.[1]

A recent study on Chinese emerging adults (aged 18-30 years) in Hong Kong identified how family financial socialization – how children learn about money from their parents – influences financial wellbeing and behaviors in relation to the emerging adults’ gender, culture, socio-economic status, and financial changes during the COVID-19 pandemic.[1] They found that Eastern societies, such as China, differ from Western societies, like the United States, in two key ways: healthy money management and financial enabling. These insights from Hong Kong can not only enrich our understanding, but also allow us to introspect on what we can learn and apply from them.

In 2018, a survey from Pew Research Center indicated that religious belief has dwindled in the United States.[1] Yet, debates about religion, religious freedom, and religious practices are in the media, politics, and dinner table conversations. From previous research, we know that religion has a powerful effect on individuals and families for better or for worse,[2] but what relationship does religion have with finances?

For many college students, managing money can feel like a juggling act. Tuition, rent, food, and unexpected expenses can pile up, often leading to stress and worry. In response, some students turn to alternative financial services (AFS) like payday loans, check-cashing outlets, or pawn shops for quick cash. While these services may seem like an easy fix, Drs. Brandon Wheeler and Cecilia Brooks argue that they can create more harm than good.[1] Their research shows that while AFS may offer immediate relief, they tend to increase long-term financial anxiety. To decrease financial anxiety in the long term, better financial literacy and support systems are crucial in helping students manage their money more effectively.

Life is often ironic. As a young child, I always wanted to grow up. I was constantly looking forward to my next birthday and getting a little bit taller so I could finally go on that one amusement park ride. Now as an emerging adult, life is more complex, and financial responsibility tends to just increase with each new trip around the sun. Life is full of decisions related to housing, friends, a career, and what kind of person you want to become. The fact that everything costs money and bills are a new constant can often feel daunting and overwhelming. While achieving adult status can be rewarding and fulfilling, it is in moments like these that I sometimes find myself thinking it would be nice to go back to being a child again.

As rent and grocery prices were rising, my university course load became heavier than ever before. I wondered if I would be able to work enough to keep up with bills and still be able to work towards my goal of higher education. I frantically searched for a job that would pay enough to cover my bills but be flexible enough to accommodate my scattered and demanding class schedule. This was a taxing experience that affected me in more than just my financial well-being, it affected my overall well-being causing a looming sense of stress that seemed to be ever present.

We do not all start with a perfect knowledge of what to do with our finances, I know I did not. Our financial knowledge and behaviors are affected by the people we are surrounded by. What we learn about finances during adolescence will affect our future financial behaviors. In a study conducted across multiple locations, Dr. LeBaron-Black and other researchers studied how parents, peers, employment, and media impact financial habits. Which one do you think has influenced you the most? In the study, they found that parents had the greatest influence on financial behaviors.[1] They also found that learning about money from parents and employment helped emerging adults develop good financial habits, while learning about money from peers and media encouraged bad financial habits.

Dr. Kristy Archuleta and colleagues studied[1] 180 college students who sought financial counseling. Their objective was to explore the impact of financial concerns on individuals’ mental well-being. The investigation delved into various factors, including debt, individuals’ satisfaction with their financial situation, and their knowledge of finances, aiming to discern the relationships between these factors and the experience of financial stress. The primary focus of the study was to uncover the influence of student debt on an individual’s financial anxiety.

The years following high school are a time of financial change and stress.[1] High school graduates who opt for a college education often find themselves trading home-cooked meals for microwave ramen. Many college students find themselves with limited funding throughout their education, often graduating with debt.[2] Lacking funds increases the importance of healthy financial habits. After all, to some degree financial success is less about how much you have, and more about how you handle what you have. However, many students do not have the financial resources and information needed to successfully navigate these years. Are there ways in which these young adults can enter college better prepared?

As a student amid many classes, bogged down by assignments and under pressure to learn a mountain of material, it may seem that the student alone is responsible for their own academic success. However, family economics research has shown that this is not completely true. While personal responsibility is undoubtedly needed for academic success, a student’s educational journey is impacted by a range of variables from government policies to parenting style. In Dr. Xiaohui (Sophie) Li’s article, What Impacts Young Generations’ School/College Education Through the Lens of Family Economics? A Review on JFEI Publications in the Past Ten Years, Li splits up her discussion of the factors that impact young generations’ education into three categories: the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of influence.[1] These levels are a way to look at the influences in a person’s life from a broad, big-picture lens (considering influences such as the government or society) to a close, direct lens (such as the family). In doing so, Li provides insight into challenges a student might encounter while obtaining an education.

As an emerging adult (ages 18-30), I can confidently say I do not actually feel like an adult. I still rely on my parents for car insurance, and regularly find myself asking what the difference between a Roth and Traditional IRA account is (many apologies to my family finance teachers, you really did your best to educate me). Many emerging adults find themselves in the same boat. With an economy that seems to require more and more of you to become a “fully fledged” adult with a house, car, and steady income stream, it can be difficult to identify as an adult on your 18th birthday.

This article was based on the project Whats and Hows of Family Financial Socialization[i], a study that spanned over 3 years. Interviewing university students and their parents and grandparents, researchers sought to learn how family finance is taught and passed down through generations.