Kenneth John White Jr

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• McCoy, M., Watkins, K., White, K., Kahler, R., & Reiter, M. (2024). The importance of the “client” experience for financial planning students: A qualitative inquiry of themes. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, 35(2). doi:10.1891/JFCP-2022-0077
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  The benefits of engaging a financial planner are well-documented in the literature. That is why it is so surprising that very few financial planners had their own planners despite spending their days purporting the importance of having a planner to potential clients. This article introduces an exercise, designed for financial planning courses, which encourages students to meet with a financial planner and write about their experience. The essays were examined using the qualitative methodology of thematic analysis. Several themes emerged: (a) insights into what it would be like to be a financial planner, (b) decreased anxiety after seeing the planner, (c) better empathy regarding the client’s experience, (d) increased respect for the interpersonal skills required to do financial planning, and (e) receiving personal and professional benefits to seeing a financial planner. Implications for both Certified Financial Planner Board Registered Programs and existing financial planners are provided based on these results.
• Watkins, K., Choi, S., Reiter, M., McCoy, M., Smodic, S., Thompson, C., White, K., & Muruthi, B. (2024). U.S. Black adults' estate planning: The role of financial planner use, inheritance receipt, and life insurance ownership. Financial Planning Review, 7(2). doi:10.1002/cfp2.1181
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  While an emerging body of research has documented the significance of estate planning, there remains limited understanding regarding the extent of Black adults' engagement with estate planning in the United States. The objectives of this study were to examine whether the utilization of financial planners, the status of inheritance receipt, and religion are associated with engagement in estate planning among U.S. Black adults, and how these associations vary based on life insurance policy ownership. Participants for this study were 673 U.S. Black adults aged 25 and older who completed an online survey in July 2021. We estimated logistic regression models to predict Black adults' engagement in estate planning. Results indicated that in fully adjusted models, Black adults who used the services of a financial planner had significantly higher odds of executing a valid will or trust than those who did not seek assistance from a financial planner. The status of inheritance receipt, frequency of attendance at religious services, and ownership of life insurance policies were positively and significantly associated with engagement in estate planning among Black adults. However, as a moderator, patterns did not differ significantly depending on whether they owned life insurance policies. These findings may assist professionals and other stakeholders in financial planning to develop strategies or interventions to enhance estate planning for U.S. Black households.
• Watkins, K., McCoy, M., White, K., Reiter, M., & Liu, Y. (2024). Exploring the Role of Financial Socialization on Financial Planning Students’ Financial and Career Confidence: A Thematic Analysis. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 45(1). doi:10.1007/s10834-023-09892-1
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  In 2021, the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Board expanded its Principal Knowledge Topics to include the domain Psychology of Financial Planning. This inclusion serves as an impetus for CFP Board Registered Programs to provide opportunities for students to explore their own attitudes and biases about money. However, little is written on how programs can aid students in this process of self-exploration. This paper introduces an experiential exercise to aid financial planning students in self-exploration. Using a thematic analysis, several themes emerged: (1) diversity in parental financial socialization, (2) anxiety about personal finances, and (3) use of technical knowledge to help loved ones. Additionally, women reported more traumatic money experiences, and men reported higher levels of career confidence. Implications can provide insights on how educational programs can aid financial planning students’ understanding of their own money beliefs to better serve future clients in the client psychology competency areas.
• White, K., Olajide, O., Watkins, K., Reiter, M., Johnson, P., & McCoy, M. (2024). Financial Education and Financial Anxiety: Do Quality and Quantity Differ?. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, 35(2). doi:10.1891/JFCP-2023-0022
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  This study used data from the 2018 National Financial Capability Study State-by-State Survey to examine the role financial capability plays in financial education and financial anxiety among a sample of consumers who received financial education (N = 4,824). Financial education was explored through two lenses, quantity and quality. Results of the mediation analyses within the structural equation models suggest that the quality of financial education is more impactful than the quantity on financial capability. The mediator, financial capability, has a significant effect on decreasing financial anxiety. The direct effect of additional hours of financial education appears to alleviate financial anxiety whereas higher quality financial education increases financial anxiety. The implications of these findings are that financial education programs should strive for quality to ensure financial capability; however, providing multiple touchpoints over time for financial education may ensure just-in-time learning and decrease financial anxiety for participants. In addition, educators can provide insights into how to cope with financial anxiety (e.g., problem-focused, emotion-focused, meaning-making, and social support).
• Skobba, K., Moorman, D., Meyers, D., White, K., & Tiller, L. (2023). Nowhere to go: Housing pathways of college students with foster care and homelessness experience. Child and Family Social Work, 28(1). doi:10.1111/cfs.12944
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  This study builds on previous research to understand longer term housing experiences in late adolescence and early adulthood for vulnerable college students. Using a biographical, qualitative method, we study high school and college housing and family circumstances for 27 students with homelessness or foster care experience enrolled in 4-year colleges in Georgia. We identified three different housing pathway types in high school—family homelessness, unaccompanied youth and foster care. Housing instability and frequent moves were common in high school among all housing pathway types. In college, students who were able to find low or no-cost housing and those who identified a foster care pathway in high school achieved greater housing stability. Others students experienced a continuation of housing instability that began in high school. Additional funding to cover the cost of on-campus housing would likely contribute to increased stability. Additional strategies, such as rental assistance programmes tailored for college students, may be needed to address housing instability for vulnerable college students. More research on the unmet housing needs and the consequences of housing instability during college for homeless and foster youth is needed to further a housing policy agenda that focuses on practical solutions.
• White, K., McCoy, M., & Love, K. (2023). The majors of transgender and gender diverse college students. Journal of LGBT Youth. doi:10.1080/19361653.2023.2268605
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  There is a documented wealth gap between cisgender and transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals. One potential contributing factor to the wealth gap is college major selection. Certain college majors (e.g. business and STEM majors) demand higher starting salaries and offer the opportunity for higher lifetime earnings. We hypothesized that TGD students may be more likely to select majors (e.g. arts and humanities) with lower starting salaries, which could impact their financial well-being. This project analyzed data from the 2017 and 2020 Study on Collegiate Financial Wellness (SCFW) (n = 1547). This study compared the percentage of TGD students who are in each major to the percentage of presumably cisgender students. The results of this exploratory study suggest support for the hypothesis. TGD college students are more likely to select art and humanities majors, and less likely to select business, science-related, and technology majors. These results should serve as a call for more research in this area and for more progress in developing inclusive college majors and careers for TGD students and professionals.
• Prelogar-Hernandez, G., McCoy, M., Lurtz, M., & White, K. (2022). Promoting I nclusion in Y our P ractice for T ransgender and G ender N on conforming C lients: Utilizing the Inclusive Financial Well being E mpowerment Model. Journal of Financial Therapy, 13(2). doi:10.4148/1944-9771.1311
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  Despite increasing attention to cultural humility and inclusivity for financial therap y mental health and financial practitioners, little is written about the best practices for working with transgender and gender non conforming ( clients. This theoretical paper will review these best practices and will present a hypothetical financial therapy case study that utilizes the Inclusive Financial Well being Empowerment Model ( The goal of this work is to introduce practitioners to the best practices for working with transgender and GNC clients in an inc lusive and empowering way and to promote future data driven research for this population.
• White, K., Love, K., McCoy, M., Reiter, M., Seponski, D., Koposko, J., & Regan, E. (2022). Factors associated with the financial strain of transgender and gender diverse college students. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 56(4). doi:10.1111/joca.12483
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  The financial health of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) college students is an understudied topic despite prior research showing significant financial distress in this population. Utilizing Brüggen et al.'s financial well-being framework and the 2017 and 2020 waves of the Study on Collegiate Financial Wellness dataset, this study examines factors related to financial strain for TGD college students. Results indicate that TGD college students experience significant indirect impacts of their gender identity on financial strain. TGD students had significantly lower financial optimism, financial self-efficacy, and financial socialization than their cisgender peers; they also engaged in behaviors associated with poor financial management significantly more frequently. These differences between TGD students and cisgender students each lead directly to significant increases in financial strain. This means that the average financial strain for TGD students is higher than for cisgender students, because of the way gender identity impacts other factors related to their financial well-being.
• White, K., Ouyang, C., Machiz, I., McCoy, M., & Qi, J. (2022). An Application of Financial Resilience to Retirement Planning by Racial/Ethnic Status. Journal of Retirement, 9(4). doi:10.3905/jor.2022.1.111
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  A great majority of Americans are underfunded and/or financially stressed about their retirement future. Black and Hispanic individuals have a greater risk for inadequate retirement savings and experience higher levels of financial stress in their retirement age. This study investigates which factors increase financial resilience among Black and Hispanic individuals in terms of their retirement preparedness. Results from the 2018 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 indicate that all four components of the financial resilience framework (economic resources, access to retirement resources, retirement knowledge, and social capital) are predictors of individuals’ subjective retirement preparedness. Results and implications are examined separately for Black, Hispanic and non-Black, non-Hispanic individuals to help financial professionals decrease the retirement planning racial and ethnic gap.
• Byram, J., Grable, J., White, K., Thomas, M., & Watkins, K. (2021). Improving Youth Financial Literacy: A Profile of Middle School Camp Attendees. Journal of Extension, 59(4). doi:10.34068/joe.59.04.02
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  The purpose of this paper is to present a profile of middle-school-age youth who participated in a week-long experiential residential camp focused on helping campers learn about and interact with money, personal finance topics, and mainstream financial service providers. Based on pre- and post-test data, it was determined an experiential real-world camp experience can increase the financial confidence and goal-setting abilities of young people.
• Sensenig, D., Lurtz, M., Joseph, M., Harris, J., White, K., & McCoy, M. (2021). CFP board anonymous case histories: Ethical themes of compensation disclosure. Financial Planning Review, 4(3). doi:10.1002/cfp2.1126
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  This study analyzed the CFP® Board's anonymous case histories (ACH) for the ethical use and misuse of compensation disclosures on the CFP Board's “Find A CFP Professional” tool. More specifically we explored the research question: what are the characteristics of CFP professionals who have violated established ethical standards regarding fee-only, fee-based, and commission fee structures from 2009 to 2020 according to the theory of fraudulent ethical behavior? A thematic analysis was used to compare cases in which CFP certificants incorrectly characterized their compensation structure (n = 23). Four themes emerged: practitioner characteristics, firm characteristics, payment characteristics, and culpability. Each theme was examined under the fraud pentagon's theoretical framework (Crowe, 2011). Several interesting findings emerged from the study, including tenured professionals representing a larger proportion of planners who committed ethics violations than previous research would suggest. In addition, there appeared to be difficulties understanding the fee-only structure when working under certain licenses or firm structures. These findings support the need to maintain public disclosure of fee-structure for consumers, highlights the importance of educating consumers on the differences between compensation types, and reinforces the need for continued education for CFP professionals to stay abreast of compliance matters.
• White, K., McCoy, M., Watkins, K., Chen, X., Koposko, J., & Mizuta, M. (2021). “We Don’t Talk About That”: Exploring Money Conversations of Black, Hispanic, and White Households. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 49(4). doi:10.1111/fcsr.12397
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  Communication around finances is essential to relational satisfaction and the acquisition of financial skills. Nevertheless, people avoid financial discussions. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (n = 8,006), this study explored how race/ethnicity relates to financial discussions through the lens of capital theory. Findings show that Black and Hispanic households had the lowest rates of financial discussions. When discussions did occur, the odds of them happening were higher with friends and lower with spouses/partners or family. Family and consumer science professionals can use the results to encourage financial communication in multiple types of relationships and households.
• White, K., Watkins, K., McCoy, M., Muruthi, B., & Byram, J. (2021). How Financial Socialization Messages Relate to Financial Management, Optimism and Stress: Variations by Race. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 42(2). doi:10.1007/s10834-020-09704-w
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  This study explored how explicit family financial socialization as reflected in three types of parental financial messages (messaging about saving, banking, and investing) relate to three financial outcomes (financial management, financial stress, and financial optimism) and how these relationships varied by race. We used cross-sectional data from 14,662 respondents from the 2014 National Student Financial Wellness Survey (NSFWS), a nationally representative dataset inclusive of students from 52 colleges and universities across the United States. Results from this study offer an understanding of how specific financial messages regarding saving, banking, and investing shape college students’ financial management behaviors and attitudes and how race/ethnicity is associated with the specific types of messaging in one’s family of origin. Specifically, results demonstrated that African American students received significantly fewer saving and banking messages and Hispanic students received fewer investing messages compared to other racial/ethnic groups. Across all racial categories, those who received the investing message reported better financial management, higher financial optimism, and experienced less financial stress.
• Muruthi, B., Watkins, K., McCoy, M., White, K., McRell, A., Thomas, M., & Taiwo, A. (2020). “Save, Even If It’s a Penny”: Transnational Financial Socialization of Black Immigrant Women. Journal of Financial Therapy, 11(2). doi:10.4148/1944-9771.1234
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  The purpose of this study is to investigate Black-Caribbean and African women’s transnational financial socialization. Analysis of the data showed two major themes. The first theme was parental financial socialization in the country of origin and included subthemes of (a) parents stressed the importance of saving, (b) learned about money management explicitly, (c) learned about money management through observation, and (d) learned by observing parent’s struggle. The second theme was the impact to women’s financial navigation in the U.S. which was comprised of (a) not receiving financial education, (b) unexpected financial stressors in the U.S., (c) difficulty saving, and (d) the need for more financial education. Implications for mental health and financial practitioners and researchers are provided
• White, K. (2020). Financial Stress and the Relative Income Hypothesis Among Black College Students. Contemporary Family Therapy, 42(1). doi:10.1007/s10591-019-09531-8
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  The majority of college students experience financial stress, but not all experience it with the same frequency or intensity. Research suggests Black students experience a greater intensity of financial stress than their White peers do. This study revealed a link between perception of relative consumption and financial stress among 965 Black students at 52 predominantly White colleges and universities in the United States. The relative income hypothesis (RIH) literature offers potential mediators of financial stress. The findings have implications for families, college students, therapists, financial educators, and school administrators.
• McCoy, M., White, K., & Chen, X. (2019). Exploring how one's primary financial conversant varies by marital status. Journal of Financial Therapy, 10(2). doi:10.4148/1944-9771.1193
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  Research has shown communication around finances is essential to relational satisfaction, yet often couples avoid these money talks. In this study, we examined how financial discussions were impacted by marital status. The findings were surprising. Married people were the least likely to be engaging in money talks with their partner; all of the other participants (e.g., co-habitating, dating, separated) were all engaging their partners at much greater rates in money talks. However, married respondents were talking to their family members, friends, financial professionals, and other professionals about money. These different conversations were ana-lyzed through the lens of social capital to explore how different couple typologies may impact their tendencies to use bridging or bonding social capital. Finally, the results suggest that other aspects of human capital (e.g., health, education, age) are also related to rates of financial con-versations. The findings of this study have strong implications for financial professionals, finan-cial therapists, mental health professionals, as well as implications for anyone in a romantic relationship.
• McCoy, M., White, K., & Love, K. (2019). Investigating the financial overconfidence of student-athletes. Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal, 9(4). doi:10.1108/SBM-10-2018-0091
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  Purpose: There is a paucity of empirical research that explores the financial well-being of collegiate student-athletes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the key aspects of financial well-being (e.g. financial knowledge, financial self-efficacy and finance-related stress levels) of varsity athletes at US colleges and universities. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used data from the National Student Financial Wellness Study. The data were analyzed using general linear regression models. Findings: The findings suggest student-athletes have lower financial knowledge than students who are non-athletes. Despite their lower levels of financial knowledge, these student-athletes report higher levels of financial self-efficacy. Furthermore, even when controlling for scholarship funding, student-athletes reported lower levels of financial stress than their counterparts. One could interpret this as student-athletes having a false sense of confidence in their money management behaviors. This overconfidence can impact many areas of their overall financial well-being. Alternatively, non-athletes may not be as financially confident as they should be. Research limitations/implications: This study could be replicated with stronger measures (e.g. Financial Self-Efficacy Scale), with the inclusion of subjective financial knowledge measures, comparing the impact of demographic variables. As, most financial constructs have gender differences (Farrell et al., 2016) and race differences (Amatucci and Crawley, 2011) and depend upon college major (Fosnacht and Calderone, 2017). Another limitation of this study is the small percentage of student-athletes, a common problem with research in this area. Further research is also needed to unpack the finding that self-efficacy decreases at higher levels of financial knowledge. Practical implications: It is evident that college students (athletes/non-athletes) need financial education. For universities and college coaches, this study could be used as a rationale for providing financial education for their athletes. The addition of financial courses could be used as a recruiting tool for collegiate coaches and benefit the university. Requiring financial education could also benefit universities long term as it may potentially increase the donor possibilities by alumni. As a final note, it is important that financial courses figure out ways to improve financial self-efficacy alongside financial knowledge, as findings suggest both are integral to decreasing financial stress. Social implications: Less than 4 percent of universities in the USA require students to take a personal finance course (Bledsoe et al., 2016). If more universities included personal finance as a graduation requirement and did more to engage student-athletes (and non-athletes) in financial planning, then the average level of financial knowledge would likely improve on campuses across the USA. In addition, increasing young adults financial self-efficacy could improve financial stress which is linked to mental health and physical health. Originality/value: This study provides the first empirical look into the financial well-being of collegiate student-athletes across the USA. Although there are many benefits to participation in college sports, student-athletes face additional time pressures and a predisposition to clustering around certain majors. Findings suggest that collegiate athletes need additional support around their financial literacy and non-athletes may need support developing financial self-efficacy. These two findings should be used by academic institutions and athletic departments to determine how to encourage financial health in their student-athletes and general student body.
• Fulk, M., & White, K. (2018). Exploring racial differences in financial socialization and related financial behaviors among Ohio college students. Cogent Social Sciences, 4(1). doi:10.1080/23311886.2018.1514681
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  This study examined how White and Black college students, particularly Black students, gain financial knowledge and skills. Recognizing that training in money management begins in childhood and adolescence, it is important to study the ways that college students adopt financial behaviors prior to pursuing higher education. Since, the availability of formal financial education is inconsistent across the American education system, parental education, and modeling may be a more important influence on the financial education of college students. The results of this study suggested parental money discussions and attending personal finance classes had the biggest overall influence on college students in each money management category.