Combining Financial Education With Mathematics Coursework: Findings From a Pilot Study

Abstract

Recent research has shown that two forms of education intervention significantly improve financial outcomes: rigorous, in-depth personal finance courses and additional mathematics coursework. This suggests that a mathematics course that offered systematic, in-depth applications to personal finance could be particularly effective. In this article, we summarize the results from a pilot of such a course, and demonstrate how it is motivated by recent literature, despite being a type of course that has so far not been studied thoroughly. We then present the results of our preliminary impact assessment and show how financial knowledge and confidence improve significantly after taking the course. We discuss how this indicates that such an approach is a promising strategy for improving financial outcomes.