FINANCIAL LITERACY AMONG POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS IN BRAZIL

Financial Education aims to bring knowledge of financial products for individuals and also to protect them from the risks related to financial markets, thus making them able to make better decisions that may have impacts in their financial lives and well being. This work seeks to understand how people conduct their economies and their financial knowledge, the way they deal with consumption, savings and investments. In order to achieve the proposed objective, a survey was conducted with 144 postgraduate students at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Brazil. The purpose of this research was to identify the students’ knowledge level on issues related to money. The survey also sought to identify whether students received financial education before joining the postgraduation course, the sources that they use to keep themselves informed and if there is interest in having subjects related to personal finance in the curriculum. The results allowed finding out main consumption preferences, how they finance their debts and also assess whether students use some financial planning tool. A low level of knowledge regarding financial matters was found. Although it has been noticed a good level of savings, basic concepts related to the daily use of money are not clear to them. The results contribute to a better understanding on how to insert topics related to financial education in the courses curricula.