Student loan debt in America has become a societal issue warranting much attention; Americans have borrowed 1.3 trillion dollars in student loans, and seven million borrowers are facing default due to economic hardship (Chopra, 2013). While student loan debt affects many populations, younger Americans are shouldering much of the burden. Forty percent of debtors are under age 30 (Brown et al., 2012), and 28% of defaulters are under age 21 (Choi, 2013). Journalistic investigations probing the cause of this problem have found that many young Americans admit to not fully understanding the financial aid process; not knowing the differences among federal loans, private loans, and grant money; and not considering the eventuality of loan repayment (Johnson, 2012; Toby, 2013).

This study investigated whether risk-taking processes were involved when adolescents and emerging adults make college-related decisions, specifically focusing on the relationship between developmentally normative risk-taking behavior and financial planning for college. A convergent parallel mixed method design was used to test quantitative correlations between risk-taking and financial planning, and qualitative investigation was used to understand the subjective experience of young Americans as they engaged the college decision making process.