The purpose of this study is to describe the actions taken by college students to face their future retirement. For this, the test designed by the National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Financial Services Users (CONDUSEF) in Mexico was used, which has items related to financial knowledge, specifically topics about savings, emergency funds and life insurance, among others. The instrument was applied to 60 UPAV college students of different levels, during the school cycle of February-August 2018, in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz; it should be noted that the range of age was older than 21 but younger than 23 years old. The descriptive analysis showed results that lead us to believe that students have emergency funds (53%) but these are used to face unexpected situations (59%); also, students do not have life insurance, which could be concerning in their personal and family life if/when they have to face a present or future illness. Regarding car insurance, most of the respondents stated that they do not own one, besides considering it an unnecessary expense. One of the study limitations was the surveyed population; hence the need to widen this research to encompass more students from such geographical area in order to obtain a wider outlook of said behavior.

The aim of the study focused on assessing the relationship between student's financial knowledge and their relationship with the use and application of financial instruments. The test designed by Garcia-Santillan, Contreras-Rodriguez and Moreno-Garcia which integrates topics on money management, savings and investment, spending, credit and budgets, was used. 333 high school students were surveyed face to face and only 305 were validated. The internal consistency Cronbach’s Alpha of the scale was of α=.860 (34 items) and α=.855 (7 dimensions). For the hypothesis test, exploratory factor analysis and canonical correlational analysis were used. The main findings show the existence of three factors that explain the structure that underlies the phenomenon of financial knowledge and the use of financial techniques, and a significant relationship was found between the constructs of financial knowledge and the use and application of financial products.

This study was undertaken to assess the level of readiness of higher education institutions (HEIs) for horizontal typology, institutional sustainability, and quality assurance in the key result areas (KRAs) for the enhancement of mechanisms, systems, and policies for the HEIs’ effective operation. It is a descriptive correlational design using the modified self-evaluation document (SED). The study showed that all the seven HEIs that participated in this study had been operating for 40 years and above, offering more than sixteen program courses with more than sixteen accredited programs. Four of the HEIs were Level 2 in accreditation status and five were ISO Certified. The level of readiness of HEIs for horizontal typology was moderately ready, which means the HEIs need some improvements in horizontal typology.  The most identified challenges affecting the level of readiness of HEIs in horizontal typology were the lack of innovation, technology, and sustainability; the lack of administrative strategies, leadership competencies, and management skills; and the lack of financial allocation for institutional development and advancements, respectively. There is no significant relationship between the institutional profile and terms of observing the standards in the KRAs. The study recommends further re-assessing the level of readiness of the HEIs in terms of documentation/evidence, observance for the improvement of the systems, processes and practices towards a more effective and efficient delivery of academic services to young people by conducting the more focused study in every KRAs and institutional self-assessment as future researches for the further improvement of the operations of HEIs.

Work-based learning (WBL) is an important tool for enhancing students' employability skills in vocational education and training. Many studies have underlined the importance of a variable of WBL, self-efficacy, and vocational identity in developing vocational students' employability skills. Nonetheless, the research is limited and examined separately. Therefore, this study investigates how WBL, self-efficacy, and vocational identity influence employability skills and how self-efficacy moderates between WBL and employability skills. Four hundred and three state university students in Yogyakarta were involved in the data collection. This study used structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to test its hypothesis. The results of the study revealed that the implementation of WBL did not have a direct effect on employability skills; however, self-efficacy was able to moderate the relationship between WBL and employability skills. However, WBL directly influences vocational identity, which in turn directly influences employability skills, while self-efficacy also directly influences employability skills. This research has important implications for improving learning that can improve students' self-efficacy skills in an effort to build students' employability skills in vocational education and training.