Abstract:
The objective of the study was to determine how well recent senior high school graduates understand
basic consumer financial concepts and to ascertain those financial topics for which a significant
proportion of students admit to not having knowledge. The sample for this research consisted of firstyear
degree students with a business major at the University of Cape Coast. There were 343 out of 613
business-major first-year students enrolled in the school of business that were tested on 20 multiplechoice
questions dealing with basic knowledge of financial issues, which should be understood in
order to function in everyday life. Of these, 190 were male and 152 were female. The highest test score
was 75% and was achieved by 1 student only and the lowest was 5% and was achieved by 7 students.
The average score was 35.87% for all students and the median score was 35%. Unlike most previous
studies, students were offered the opportunity to respond “don’t know” to each question. On 15 of the
20 questions, more students selected the incorrect answers than those selecting “don’t know” answer
