College students who are unprepared for financial decision making may make risky decisions such as compulsive spending and debt accumulation. Financial stress impacts both academic achievement and retention. The current literature addresses the deficiency college students have when making financially responsible decisions, but little is mentioned specifically on how to repair this deficiency or what particular financial components should be taught during higher education. The purpose of this quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group study was to determine the influence that a financial education intervention administered in First Year Experience courses had on students' perceptions of their financial behavior such as compulsive spending and credit card use. This study utilized the five-point Likert-type scales: Compulsive Buying Scale (d'Astous, Maltais, & Roberge, 1990) and the Degree of Irrational Credit Use Scale (d'Astous, 1990) to assess a student's predisposition to spend compulsively and to make unwise decisions with credit cards. This study included students who were enrolled in the First Year Experience courses UC 109: First Year Seminar and EHS 140: Enhancing Human Potential at a small land-grant Great Plains university. The class sections were randomly assigned into one of the following groups: the lecture treatment group, who received an intervention of a lecture on financial responsibility and compulsive spending; the social media treatment group, who received an intervention of access to a financial management website and Facebook group; and the control group, who received no intervention. The data were analyzed using t tests and analysis of covariance to determine if a significant difference existed between the groups. There were significant differences in the Compulsive Buying Scale pretest scores between the men and women, indicating that women may have a higher propensity to compulsively spend than men. Analysis of covariance found significant differences between the control group and both treatment groups for many individual questions on the Compulsive Buying Scale posttest as well as the composite posttest score (p < 0.05). This revealed that the inclusion of financial education in first-year seminars makes a positive difference on the student's perception of their financial behavior regarding compulsive spending decisions. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]