Abstract

A survey was conducted in 2007 to examine the overall consumption behavior among undergraduates in the Malaysian public universities and compared the differences in consumption behavior between students in higher income and lower income states. The test results indicated that students in higher income states allocated significantly higher expenditures on total, academic, cost-of-living, food, lodgings and other expenditures than students in the lower income state. Whereas students in lower income state spent higher amounts on clothing, telecommunication and non-academic traveling than did the students in the higher income state. The OLS regression analysis showed that, holding other factors constant, students in higher-income state not only spent significantly more for total cost-of-living expenditures but also for food and lodging expenditures.