spousal/parental support, gifts, interest from investments,
scholarships, etc., but not money from loans, cash advances,
credit cards, or any funds students were required
to pay back. Lastly, it appeared that more students who
had lost the HOPE Scholarship worked more hours than
those who still had the HOPE Scholarship.
Four financial behavior variables were assessed. The mean
values of all four were statistically different between the
students who still had the HOPE Scholarship and those
who had lost it at the time of the survey. The four variables
were a mean positive financial behavior score, the dollar
amount of student loan debt, the dollar amount of credit
card debt, and the dollar amount of other debts. These and
all other survey responses were self-reported. The positive
financial behavior score was based on an average of the
students’ responses to seven items using a frequencybased,
five-point Likert scale. The specific positive financial
behaviors assessed were the regular monitoring of
one’s checking account balance, the use of a budget,
avoidance of overspending, avoidance of writing checks
with insufficient funds, regular saving, the payment of bills
on time, and self-perceived positive money management.
The variable “other debts” represented the amount of debt
held by the student other than credit card, mortgage, and
student loan debt. Other debts primarily consisted of
automobile loans, personal loans from friends or family,
and private loans from a financial institution such as a
bank or credit union.
Methods and Results
To examine how various financial behaviors differed
between college students who lost the HOPE Scholarship
and those who retained the HOPE Scholarship, multivariate
logistic regression was used. The response variable was
coded 1 if the student had lost the HOPE Scholarship due
to a low GPA and 0 if the student still had the scholarship
at the time of survey. Based on the literature review and
the preliminary analyses of the data, three socioeconomic
variables were controlled. They were gender (male as