The Impact of Financial Strain and Academic Workload on Stress in College Students

In our current study, we looked at stress in college students, financial strain, and academic workload. Participants were 149 students from a small university in South Carolina. Data were collected in a convenience sample with an online questionnaire. We manipulated academic workload using high- and low-workload scenarios. We also manipulated financial strain using high- and low-strain scenarios that were given to the students randomly. After each scenario, we measured the amount of stress participants would feel if they were in that financial/academic situation, using the Situational Stress Scale of Edwards, Edwards and Lyvers (2015). We conducted an independent-samples t-test to examine the effect of course load on stress. There was a significant difference in the amount of stress between the high (M = 6.02) and low (M = 5.08) academic load conditions (t (130) = 4.22, p \u3c 0.001). We also conducted an independent-samples t-test to examine the effect of financial strain on stress. There was a significant difference in the amount of stress between the high (M = 6.52) and low (M = 3.88) financial strain conditions (t (78.15) = 10.87, p \u3c 0.001). The results show that students who have a larger course load are more stressed than students who have a smaller course load, and students who have higher financial strain are more stressed than students with low financial strain. Implications for future research on college students and stress are discussed