There is an ongoing need to study the effectiveness of financial education courses in higher education to inform best practices. This paper describes a study of the impact of a semester-long undergraduate personal finance course on students’ financial capability, including measures of financial knowledge, performance of positive financial practices, and self-assessed financial confidence. Data were collected from students in 2017 and 2022 with two cohorts almost equally spaced apart from the official start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Thus, this study provided a unique opportunity to study course impacts pre- and post-pandemic. Analyses were made of respondents’ financial capability before and after completing the course in each subsample and then time-period comparisons were made. Evidence was found in both time periods of increased financial knowledge and confidence and performance of positive financial practices.

Accepted Oral Presentation