Examination of Financial Literacy and Consciousness among Hungarian Tertiary Education Students

Kálmán, Botond (2020) Examination of Financial Literacy and Consciousness among Hungarian Tertiary Education Students. Masters thesis, University of Buckingham.

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Abstract

Thousands of lives changed permanently after the financial crisis of 2008. Insufficient awareness consequently led to the financial ruin of whole families. Hence, the importance of financial education has been confirmed. University students entering the labour market after graduation are crucial as they must take autonomous decisions regarding their financial affairs. Since several years have passed since the last comprehensive appraisal of Hungarian tertiary students, updating of knowledge has become advisable so as to involve new services in the research. I have therefore chosen to assess financial knowledge and financial awareness amid Hungarian university students. The resulting expected practicability is multipurpose: it could promote the design and development of financial education methods and improve the bank sector through enhancing the introduction of such constructions and services that would adapt to the demands of college students. The objective of my research was to determine whether teaching financial knowledge resulted in higher financial intelligence and financial consciousness, viz., how much practical benefit financial education had. Questionnaire survey was applied for achieving this target; the questions in paper form were delivered to the potential respondents using the snowball sampling method. My starting hypothesis was that financial knowledge and consciousness of economics students were higher vis-à-vis students from other programmes. Results of my research verified my assumption, even broadening previous knowledge, as students of legal training exhibited similar performance to students of economic programmes. The results also demonstrated that financial consciousness of university students working at the same time as studying was higher than of their counterparts out of work. This represents the importance of the effects of practical experience. Inferences deducible from the results are, as yet, of only limited use. Precondition of general applicability is rerunning the research with a larger sample and extending it to college students of other countries.

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