This report provides survey results of a study of institutions' student account and loan receivables, payment channels, credit balance refunds, third-party payments, staffing and student financial services expenditures during the fiscal years from 2008-2011. [For "2011 Student Financial Services Benchmarking Report," see ED608487.]

Financial stress and self-efficacy are examined in relationship to college students' financial help-seeking behavior utilizing Grable and Joo's (1999) framework. A cognitive approach is taken by focusing on the moderating role of financial self-efficacy on the relationship between financial stress and financial help-seeking. Data from the 2010…

The Society of Actuaries (SOA) is the world's largest actuarial organization. This article describes the SOA with particular attention paid to its education and qualification processes and resources available for university and college programs.

The authors describe how Southern Utah University has integrated the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Voluntary Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program as an experiential servicelearning activity for over a decade and a half. First, we describe the value of experiential servicelearning. Second, we detail the program, its oversight, its student…

A group of postgraduate accounting and finance students were asked to participate in a three-phase exercise: sit an unseen past examination question; mark a fully anonymised previous student solution (exemplar); and then mark their own work. The marking process was facilitated by explaining and discussing the marking guide, assessment systems and…

Software, particularly spreadsheet software, is ubiquitous in the financial services workplace. Yet little is known about the extent to which universities should, and do, prepare graduates for this aspect of the modern workplace. We have investigated this issue through a survey of financial services employers of graduates, the results of which are…

This paper uses Excel to enhance the pedagogy of capital structure theory for corporate finance instructors and students. We provide a lesson plan that utilizes Excel spreadsheets and graphs to develop understanding of the theory. The theory is introduced in three scenarios that utilize Modigliani & Miller's Propositions and…

Using a data set that augments a student survey with administrative data from the Iowa State University Office of Financial Aid, the authors posed two questions: Do students know whether they have student loans? Do students know how much they owe on outstanding student loans? We used logistic and ordered logit regressions to answer these…

We describe specific curricular decisions employed at Butler University that have resulted in student achievement in the actuarial science major. The paper includes a discussion of how these decisions might be applied in the context of a new actuarial program.

Using cross-sectional data, we examined the financial information sources, financial knowledge, and financial practices of young adults, many of whom are first generation college students, ethnic minorities, and immigrants or children of immigrants. Participants (n = 1,249) were undergraduate students at a large regional comprehensive university.…

Professors who teach the introductory accounting course should ask themselves: "What are the core concepts that I wish to have my non-majors remember if I meet them at their ten-year alumni class reunion?" There is a fundamental logic to financial accounting. This teaching note presents foundational accounting concepts in a manner that…

The role of universities in preparing students to use spreadsheet and other technical software in the financial services workplace has been investigated through surveys of university graduates, university academics, and employers. It is found that graduates are less skilled users of software than employers would like, due at least in part to a…

Real-life accounting and auditing problems are often complex and messy, requiring the synthesis of technical knowledge in addition to the application of generic skills. To help students acquire the necessary skills to deal with these problems effectively, educators have called for the use of case-based methods. Cases based on real situations (such…

The accounting curriculum (in fact business colleges in general) often is accused of operating in silos. As a result, it is claimed that students fail to see the connections among the assignments in their separate course work and the necessity to have an integrated understanding to function effectively in the real-world. As a response to the…

Outsourcing of investment management is a growing trend among institutional investors. With a broad range of institutions using or exploring the outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) model, portfolio size is no longer the determining factor driving the outsourcing decision. For all but the largest institutional investors--those with deep…