Beyond Finance Graduates Report 42% Improvement in Financial Habits by Graduation
Reviewed by Dr. Erika Rasure, PhD, CFT™
Debt resolution is often framed as a mathematical problem — reduce the balance, lower the payment, reach zero. But the graduates of Beyond Finance’s program are telling a more complete story: one in which paying off debt is the beginning of a financial transformation, not the end of it. A graduate survey of more than 10,000 Beyond Finance program completers found that graduates rated their financial habits at an average of 5.7 out of 10 before enrolling — and 8.1 out of 10 by graduation. That 42% improvement, measured across budgeting, spending, and saving behaviors, reflects something that goes well beyond debt reduction.
What the Data Measures — and Why It Matters
The survey presents graduates with two rating prompts at the time of program completion:
“Please rate your financial habits BEFORE working with Beyond Finance including budgeting, spending, and saving.”
“Please rate your financial habits AFTER working with Beyond Finance including budgeting, spending, and saving.”
Graduates rate themselves on a scale from 1 (“Very Irresponsible”) to 10 (“Very Responsible”). The before score of 5.7 and after score of 8.1 represent self-reported behavioral change — how graduates themselves assess the shift in how they manage money day to day.
Self-reported outcomes are meaningful for a specific reason: financial behavior change is primarily an internal process. The person most qualified to evaluate whether they’ve developed new budgeting habits, changed their relationship with spending, or built savings practices they didn’t have before is the person themselves. Unlike satisfaction scores, they’re assessments of behavioral change from the people who went through the process first-hand.
The data is also notable for what it reveals about the starting point. A 5.7 average before enrollment reflects clients who recognized their financial habits weren’t where they needed to be — and who sought help as a result. The 8.1 at graduation reflects something more than debt payoff: it reflects people who feel meaningfully more capable of managing their finances going forward.
This tracks with independent research on what debt resolution actually does.A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that reducing debt improves cognitive functioning and reduces anxiety and present bias — meaning that addressing debt doesn’t just free up financial resources, it frees up mental and emotional capacity that was previously consumed by the weight of owing the debt.
92% Found Their Program Payments Affordable
The habit improvement data is reinforced by a parallel finding from the same graduate survey cohort: more than 92% of graduates said their program payments were affordable throughout the process.
The reason this matters may not be immediately obvious, but affordability isn’t just a client satisfaction metric — it’s a prerequisite for behavioral change. A debt resolution program that replaces unmanageable minimum payments with a single consolidated payment that actually fits within a client’s budget creates the conditions for the kind of financial breathing room in which new habits can form. When every dollar is already spoken for by payments that exceed what someone can sustain, there is no margin for budgeting, no surplus to redirect toward savings, no space to practice the habits that lead to long-term financial health.
More than 70% of Gen Z and Millennials describe survival spending as the norm — a level of financial pressure that makes behavioral change genuinely difficult. An affordable program payment is what creates the opening.
What Behavioral Change Actually Looks Like
The 42% improvement in financial habits is an aggregate. Behind it are thousands of individual stories of specific behavioral shifts — new systems, new mindsets, new practices that graduates often describe in their own words.
Building a budget for the first time:
I actually have a budget every month… I’ve got myself a budget which I never had before. Now I do. I know where every penny is going.
— Janette R., Beyond Finance Graduate and Survey Participant
Shifting from credit to intentional spending:
Instead of using a credit card, I’m more often using a debit card so I know I have the money I’m spending. It doesn’t give me the urge like, “Oh, I have a high limit, I can spend this!”
— Jonathan D., Beyond Finance Graduate and Survey Participant
Developing a tracking system:
I do a spreadsheet… and I watch it and monitor it very closely. I log all my expenses from rideshare to groceries to entertainment.
— Gabe R., Beyond Finance Graduate and Survey Participant
Changing how spending decisions get made:
I don’t ever charge on anything that I can’t afford. If it’s a large amount, I just try to save up from my paychecks or use what I have in savings.
— Dina E., Beyond Finance Graduate and Survey Participant
Building savings and moving toward larger financial goals:
Instead of spending my money right away, I put it in savings for the next couple months… that little extra money that I was stashing away, I was comfortable enough putting that towards a little bit higher payment for rent or mortgage.
— Latia I., Beyond Finance Graduate and Survey Participant
These program graduates’ experiences are representative of a pattern that appears consistently in graduate feedback: people who came into the program focused on getting out of debt also leave with a fundamentally different relationship with money.
How Beyond Finance Supports Habit Change — Not Just Debt Payoff
The 42% improvement in financial habits doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the product of a program designed to address both the practical and behavioral dimensions of financial difficulty simultaneously.
Weekly financial wellness sessions with certified financial therapists. Beyond Finance is the only major debt solutions company with accredited financial therapists embedded directly into its program. Dr. Erika Rasure, PhD, CFT™ and Nathan Astle, CFT™ lead five live group sessions per week for enrolled clients — addressing the emotional, behavioral, and psychological dimensions of money alongside the practical work of debt resolution.
The Beyond Mobile® app. Enrolled clients have access to Beyond Finance’s proprietary first-of-its-kind mobile app, which allows them to track their progress, monitor accounts, and get 24/7 support from the Client Success team. Visibility into forward progress — watching accounts resolve over time — reinforces the behavioral reality that consistent small steps produce meaningful change.
Financial wellness tools, videos, and resources. Beyond Finance provides a library of financial wellness content developed by Dr. Rasure and Nathan Astle covering budgeting, saving, spending mindset, and the emotional dimensions of financial recovery — available to clients throughout the program.
The combination of practical support, emotional support, and ongoing visibility into progress is what produces the behavioral shifts graduates describe. “When debt is consuming your mental and emotional bandwidth, there’s very little left over for building new habits,” says Dr. Erika Rasure, Beyond Finance’s Chief Financial Wellness Advisor. “What debt resolution does — when it’s done well — is create space. Space to breathe, space to think, and space to start practicing a different relationship with money. The improvement we see in our graduates’ financial habits reflects what becomes possible when that space exists.”
As the PNAS research suggests, reducing debt frees up cognitive and psychological bandwidth — and Beyond Finance’s program is designed to help clients use that bandwidth to build something lasting.
The Context: Why This Matters Now
At a time when financial stress is at historically elevated levels and 62% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, the Beyond Finance graduate survey offers a meaningful counternarrative. “When you see behavioral change data across more than 10,000 successful graduates, that’s an important signal — proof of the lasting impact our program has through a solid foundation of strong financial habits.” says Vanessa Hering, Beyond Finance’s EVP of Strategy and Analytics. “That’s the outcome that means the most: a lasting mentality toward finances and ongoing financial freedom built on consistent habits.”
Beyond Finance’s financial wellness resources — including the weekly therapist-led sessions, financial wellness resources, and the tools developed by Dr. Rasure and Nathan Astle — are available to enrolled clients throughout the program. For people considering whether a Beyond finance program might be right for their situation, a free consultation is a no-obligation starting point.
About the Survey
The findings cited in this piece are drawn from Beyond Finance’s graduation survey, sent to all program completers at the time of graduation. Among the questions and prompts included in the survey, graduates are asked to rate their financial habits — including budgeting, spending, and saving — both before enrollment and at graduation on a scale from 1 (Very Irresponsible) to 10 (Very Responsible). The findings reflect responses from more than 10,000 program graduates, representing a 12.4% response rate from the full graduate population the survey was sent to. The 5.7 before-enrollment average and 8.1 graduation average represent a 42% collective improvement in self-reported financial habit quality.
