Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS)

About the Survey

Trellis Company conducts this annual, nationwide student financial wellness survey to explore the connection between student finances and academic success. Trellis is a nonprofit company with origins in administering federal student loan programs and has nearly 40 years of experience working with students and higher education institutions to expand opportunities for students.

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The Importance of Participating

The Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) seeks to document the financial well-being and student success outcomes of post-secondary students across the nation. This self-reported, online survey of students is 100% free for institutions to use.

By providing deeper insights into the interconnectedness between student financial stress and student success, the SFWS can be used to:

  • Inform college success and financial support programming at institutions.
  • Provide institutional reports on the financial wellness of the student body and key campus climate metrics.
  • Use institutional data to provide context to student responses and inform campus policy.
  • Create a nationally-recognized data set around student finances that aligns with the needs of post-secondary institutions, state and federal governments, as well as nonprofit entities.

“The University of Oklahoma was extremely interested in participating in Trellis’ Student Financial Wellness Survey in the Spring 2018 semester. By participating in the survey we hope to include our students’ input into the national financial wellness data measures being collected. We plan to utilize this important research to further refine our various student financial services offered at the University of Oklahoma and to ensure we are addressing and targeting the actual needs of students as indicated in the final results.”

Judi Voeller, Associate Director, Grants, Research and Special Projects, The University of Oklahoma

“The Student Financial Wellness Survey has been a great resource for Palo Alto College. It has provided our entire community with strong research documenting the extent to which our students are struggling financially. We are already using the findings from the survey to inform our strategic planning and better support our students.”

Katherine Doss, Dean of Student Success, Palo Alto College
“The Trellis team was a pleasure to deal with, responding to clarifying questions throughout the planning and implementation process for the Student Financial Wellness Survey in a very timely manner as well as going above and beyond to provide documentation and supplemental information to help inform decision-making about the implementation across our institutions.”
Andrea Pellegrini, Assistant Director, USFSCO Student Money Management Center, University of Illinois System
“This survey was a great “return on investment” for our campus! Having this snapshot of our students’ financial knowledge on various topics informs our financial literacy efforts to make the content more timely and applicable to our student body. We even received information on housing and food insecurity, which was an added benefit to this easy-to-administer survey.”
Kevin Sutton, Financial Literacy Coordinator, SUNY Oneonta

“The experience working with Trellis was very simple and smooth process. The data and perspective we received on students financial wellness is extremely valuable. This information will improve the Financial Learning Ambassador programming on all six Valencia College campuses. We are extremely grateful for this opportunity to ask crucial financial wellness questions to our students.”

Ilia Cordero, Assistant Director of Financial Aid, Valencia College