Overlooked and Undersupported: How financial and time scarcity disempower Students' Agency and the prospect of unconditional basic income (UBI)

The present study investigates how financial and time scarcity undermine university students' sense of agency and explores the potential of an unconditional basic income (UBI) as an educational policy intervention. Using a mixed-methods design, this study examines a comprehensive sample of 504 university students from Germany, through qualitative content analysis and quantitative correlation analysis to investigate to what extent, financial and time scarcity deplete students' motivational resources, restricts their capacity for agentic decision-making, and influences their perceptions of UBI as a means to enhance both academic and personal agency. Results indicate that students experiencing greater financial and time scarcity tend to experience a greater amount of mental load, manifested in frequent concerns about finances, worries about bills, and constant ruminating about expenses, burdens they believe could be alleviated with UBI. In contrast, students who do not experience financial and time scarcity, were more likely to regard UBI as unnecessary and offer fewer ideas for its potential impact on their lives and education. These findings suggest that students in our sample do not view UBI merely as material support or increased consumption, but as a profound psychological relief from scarcity-related pressures, with the potential to strengthen students' agency, enabling them to engage more in their education as well as support agentic decisions and self-directed futures. This study deepens the understanding of university students' needs and barriers through the lens of scarcity mindset research, while exploring the transformative potential of universal basic income to expand educational opportunities and empower young adults to make free and agentic decisions for their lives and learning.