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Susan Eitel, a lecturer in family sciences at Texas Woman's University, says most of the 39 students interviewed at an unnamed public university for her 2007 doctoral dissertation knew they were making unwise and wasteful financial decisions that were harming their educations, but they still did not want to bother learning about finances. Nor were they interested in making short-term sacrifices (such as selling a car or canceling a cellphone) that would raise cash for tuition and give them more free time to study and possibly raise their long-term prospects.
<p>This is simply a sad reality, especially for those students who do not have their parents to rely on for money. Some people just don’t want to change their habits and live for now. I can completely understand where they’re coming from.</p>
<p>It sounds like a good idea to require personal finance classes, but that would burden college students similarly to how physical education burdens high school students.</p>
<p>It is sad. I don’t think personal finance courses are needed, it’s not like these students are ignorant of what they are doing:</p>
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<p>What was even more alarming was:</p>
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<p>Now I’m sure that 70% of poor students are not making unsound financial decisions. Sometimes the money isn’t there, regardless of financial wisdom, and we (as a country) need to be doing something to make college more affordable to low-income, first generation students. Not just at the elites, but at the flagship state school and other state schools. It is just one more way how the cycle of poverty continues at a country that supposedly gives everyone a chance to succeed.</p>
<p>I don’t think college students are given enough credit for their hard work. College is tough, and the sad fact is that fun costs money. I can’t live 4 years with just studying without fun. Therefore, I will spend money. Where is that money coming from? My workstudy paycheck.</p>
<p>I spent about 700 dollars from my workstudy on a new computer, and I don’t regret a single bit. College is the first time that many students experience the freedom of working for their own cash, and buying what they want with that money. It’s how our society works.</p>
<p>See you made a choice, in that some level of fun takes priority. I am paying my own way through school. I have no money left over for fun. And between work and school I have no time for fun either.
I’m glad you’re in the position to be able to do well in school and have fun, but not all of us have that luxury. Many do not have that choice. We do what we have to to survive and get our education. Nothing else matters. Four years of grind is but a drop in the bucket, and well worth it.</p>
<p>I am glad to see an article about student borrowing where the anecdotes of hardship are tied to incredibly poor decisions by the borrowers. I know this is not always the case, but more often that not it is. College is a huge financial undertaking these days. My son’s first year of college will cost more than the first house I bought 25 years ago. The student has limited ability to earn money while going to school and enormous expenses while pursuing a degree. Going to college can be an extremely beneficial venture, intellectually, socially, and financially. But it comes at quite a cost, and many do not endeavor to count the cost up front.</p>
<p>FAFSA, for the most part, doesn’t take into account how applicants and their families spend their money. Perhaps they should, not to adjust the EFC, but to warn people of the financial difficulties that surely lie ahead because their spending is out of line with their income.</p>
<p>The concept of deferred gratification seems to have been lost. I am not just talking about the college years, but the years leading up to the college years. That is when frugality and fiscal responsibility should be learned and practiced.</p>
<p>The premise behind it is “to provide women with the skills and knowledge necessary to address financial matters that may arise in their personal, professional, family and community lives. In establishing this program, Smith recognizes financial literacy as vital to achieving leadership of all kinds in today’s complex world.”</p>
<p>While the program was founded with the belief that women in particular have often been raised to feel that they can rely on others for financial knowledge and support, from what I’ve read in Kim Clark’s article, it sounds as if this is an area that we as a society neglect for both males and females.</p>
<p>I’ve long advocated financial classes in high school. My kids were offered classes in cooking and sewing, metal shop, etc, but there is no class that teaches how to balance a checkbook, or teaches the very basic rules of finance. By the time kids are in college, they’ve already commited to their education, whether that’s by summer job savings, taking out student loans, whatever.</p>
<p>When our son was a sophomore and decided to live off campus, we deposited into his account the equivalent of what is would have cost him to live in the dorm for the year. He set up a secondary checking account and moved that money over into it. At the end of the year he had money left over from frugally living and careful money management. His jobs paid for his personal expenses. This was repeated junior and senior year. I don’t think he is alone in being able to manage money and wish the article had also included sotries on student who can and do manage their finances wisely.</p>
<p>Leslie- we did the same thing and one D at a UC ended up money ahead, one never had enough- same personal spending habits as they had growing up :D</p>
<p>College will rarely, if ever, mandate personal finance classes. Why? Two reasons:</p>
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<li>It isn’t considered “academic.”</li>
<li>It goes against the the self interest of the college. Let’s face it. Why would a private college tell their kids that substantial college debt is bad?!</li>
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<p>My HS (a large public in Illinois) required consumer economics classes of all students who did not pass the consumer economics test (the majority didn’t pass). The class teaches balancing checkbooks, managing earnings, selecting cheap but decent-quality products, getting a debit/credit cards, etc. Maybe more states should require this class?</p>
<p>One problem that I think exists today is the blurry line that separates luxuries from imperatives. In my college era, nearly 40 years ago, there wasn’t a lot of technology, so–rich or poor or in-between–most students had more or less the same stuff. Sure, some students had cars and many didn’t, and some had snazzier clothes than others. But all of the electronic gizmos that are so prevalent now were still the stuff of science fiction back then.</p>
<p>Even though today’s students can certainly exist without a cell phone and computer, I put them under the “Imperative” rubric nonetheless. Faculty and administrators often send important info via text message. (Some faculty friends of mine say that even e-mail has become obsolete when they need to reach students quickly with important updates.) Some colleges have stopped putting telephones in student rooms because nearly everyone shows up with a cell and few use the land lines. (In my day, 30+ of us shared one hall phone!)</p>
<p>Those of you going through the college admissions process now realize how much of it requires a computer (and not just to access College Confidential!) Although all colleges have computer centers or library computers for general use, the student without his or her own is at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>But I repeatedly see students from all income brackets whose must-have list far exceeds these new “basics.” They have the priciest phones and service plans and computers with media-friendly add-ons. They bring TVs and DVD players to college and opt for premium channels when available. (When I was a sophomore, one girl in my dorm had a small black and white TV in her room. The rest of us regarded it was if it were a Lear Jet … that’s how unusual it was back then to have one’s own television.)</p>
<p>I also came of age at a time when typical families rarely had more than two cars, and most had one or two TV’s and one or two phones at home. The idea that everyone had to have his or her own personal whatever was almost unheard of.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to sound like Abe Lincoln, whose legendary trek to school through snow gets longer and more arduous with each retelling. But I do feel that families today–not just college students–have lost perspective on the line that separates “Wants” and “Needs.” Some of those who struggle financially with students in college (though certainly not all) could find themselves in a far better place if they took a closer look at what they own and/or pay for.</p>
<p>But beyond teaching students to manage their finances, I think the government should provide better financial aid to all kids who have gotten into college. With the financial aid I received from my state’s public univesity (UIUC), there was no way that I could ever attend. I did not get any grants - only an enormous loan and work-study, which did not suit me because I don’t want the paychecks from my first job to disappear into thin air. Why can’t we have a nearly-free education like most of Europe does? The yearly tuition cap on higher education in England is about $4000, I believe. Here, you practically have to be homeless to have that sort of financial aid. Of course, we can’t change private colleges and universities, but why don’t we work on finaid for the publics?</p>
<p>Another factor which the article does not address, is the psychological effect attendant to the shift from grants to loans in higher education funding. Most students know that they will have to borrow to get their education, although they may not fully appreciate how unfavorably those loan terms will actually affect them. Which is not that unexpected given that the collusion between the edudebt industry and academia. And that alliance brought on a moral decay in academia that students eventually do perceive and which does have detrimental effect. </p>
<p>So in many cases students perceive their education as a incredible gamble-one which is often perceived as being of an amoral or immoral nature-knowing that whether they succeed or fail the toll will still likely damn them. In that regard, what we’re seeing is a form of recklessness not dissimilar to attitudes which had heretofore been limited to marginalized populations. </p>
<p>For an increasing number of students, the parameter is why bother pretending the rules work, because the system is so skewed against them. It’s a weird form of learned helplessness. </p>
<p>Concerning the less affluent students the lower graduation rates are not surprising given their limited resource base, and the often poor preparation they receive in the public schools. But unfortunately that population is specifically being targeted by less ethical aspects of the private student loan industry. To the extent that they are contacted, at home and unsolicited, by these companies targeting them to sign unfavorable loan contracts. In some cases I’ve seen this happen even prior to their admission to a given college and FAFSA process is even completed. </p>
<p>To illustrate how morally low some of these companies are, they are specifically targeting NA’s who’ve just moved off the reservations. Now these are often very adaptable and intelligent individuals, but they often have difficulties adjusting to large city life, and need time to learn the modes and moralities of a very different situation. </p>
<p>So yes, there is no dispute about students needing financial discipline, and some may have difficulties discerning between essentials and trivialities, but there is much more to this problem than just naive students. </p>
<p>The core of the issue is a morally bankrupt educational system, which became such a thing by allowing profiteers to feed amongst the verdant lawns and ivory towers. And ultimately they are feeding upon our next generation. So we can criticize the young for their failings, but in this context to do so too overtly might imply a tacit defense of those who’d prey upon their vulnerabilities?</p>
<p>As a parent who wanted to give “everything” to her kids, I take a lot of the blame for my kids’ attitudes about entitlement. It’s very difficult to teach budgeting and priorities when the everyday home life is not geared that way. It is very easy to get used to certain things and take them for granted. What is particularly sad about this situation is that our kids are no longer upper middle or even middle class once they leave us, and those standards are no longer to be taken for granted. What we can provide them when they are with us, we cannot when they go off on their own. One of the basic premises that I always pushed was how important education was and how it ranked way up there in what we were willing to pay. So our kids think nothing about owing hundreds of thousands for the cost of education. Many kids are raised that way.</p>
<p>It certainly does seem that the line between ‘want’ and ‘need’ has become blurred, both for people of our generation, and even more so for todays college-age young adults. With technology changing so quickly, the consumer base is almost built-in. Look at the iphone, and the iPod, and all the latest-and-greatest cell phones. The ‘old’ ones become obsolete so quickly. And of course nobody ‘needs’ the biggest and best, but I think a lot of teens really identify themselves with their belongings. </p>
<p>From what I’ve read and my own anecdotal evidence, part of the reason that lower-income kids don’t make it through college is that they can’t compete socially. They didn’t have the worldly experiences of their more sophisticated peers, they don’t have enough money to attend all the ‘cool’ events (spring break, concerts, etc), and many of them are working. Even for the ones that do persevere and make it through, I would bet that their experience is very different from the experience of a student from an affluent background.</p>
<p>And setting a good example doesn’t always sink in to the kid.</p>
<p>I’m thrifty, okay, call me cheap. I think my son resented my cheapness (trust me, he didn’t live without anything except for the latest video games). He has taken a fancy to lots of expensive clothes and he bought himself a top of the line Ipod (I offered to get him a 2gb player for $40 like the one I have but he bought an 80gb Ipod). </p>
<p>He knows how I feel about this. He doesn’t care (apparently). This is not the example I set for him. You can force the horse’s mouth into the water, but you still can’t make him drink.</p>