James Gaffney, of Appleton, became interested in the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh when he learned that the College of Business supported the educational path he was interested in. “I’ve been trying to get into analytics, so when I found out that UW Oshkosh had an analytics minor, I decided to jump on it,” he said.
As a junior majoring in information systems, Gaffney undertook a research project with UWO assistant economics professor Joshua Foster. The two of them applied for and earned a grant from the Office of Student Research and Creative Activity in order to explore the differences in financial opportunity among generations.
Although it is a commonly-held belief that certain generations had an easier or harder time accumulating wealth than others, Gaffney said the evidence he collected doesn’t point to any such conclusion.
“I don’t believe that there’s necessarily a generation that had it any easier or any harder. I think we just all have our own hardships and our own things that make it a little easier to live in the generations we live in,” Gaffney said.
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