Purpose: To identify the financial stress and associate factors of tertiary level student. Design/methodology/approach: To identify the financial stress and associate factors, a structured questionnaire was developed to collect data from 571 students of different universities of Bangladesh through Google form. Chi square and Cramer's "V" were applied to find the associated factors with financial stress of students, whereas ordinal regression was performed to evaluate the influence of the associated factors on financial stress. Findings: Gender, living status, borrowing loan factors have positive association with financial stress. Tuition fee dues have significant positive association with financial stress. A student who has tuition fee dues feels 1.48 times more stress compared to student who does not have dues. Females were found less likely to be financially stressed (AOR = 1.536) than male students. Students who borrowed loans were more likely to have financial stress than non-borrowed loan groups of students. Practical implications: Results indicate that financial stress has a strong impact on participation in different academic and personal activities of a student. Therefore, parents, university administration and student counselor should consider the factor to assess stress of a student. Originality/value: This study identified factors responsible for financial stress of Bangladeshi students of tertiary level.