<![CDATA[Young investor participation in Indonesia’s capital market has grown substantially, yet financial literacy among university students remains below the national average, creating concerns about the quality of investment decisions in this segment. This study examines the influence of financial literacy, financial motivation, and social influence on investment preferences among undergraduate students in Semarang City, adopting the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as the theoretical framework. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted with 90 undergraduate students at universities in Semarang City, and data were analyzed using multiple linear regression with IBM SPSS Statistics version 26. The results show that all three variables positively and significantly influenced investment preferences, jointly explaining approximately 70% of the variance. Financial motivation emerged as the strongest predictor, reflecting students’ autonomous orientation toward financial independence rather than external economic pressure. A gap was identified between declarative financial knowledge and applicable decision-making confidence, while digital social media exposure proved more influential than direct peer interaction in shaping investment preferences. These findings suggest that financial education programs should shift from knowledge transfer to experiential decision-making training, and that regulators and fintech platforms should develop systematic digital content strategies to translate students’ investment intentions into actual investment behavior.]]>
