Being involved in administration at an institution of higher education, I frequently find myself observing just how unprepared or underprepared young people really are about the financial challenges that will face them when they head off to college.
Students often find themselves overborrowing on college loans and living off the excess funding they receive. In career college settings where the average student age is approximately 26 years old, students even go so far as using excess student loan funding as a source of income to pay living expenses and to take care of everyday needs. To make the picture even more bleak, these sames students see nothing wrong with overextending themselves financially and even hopping school to school to try and increase the availability of funding available to them. Is this really what these young people should be doing? What, if anything, did these young people learn about personal finance education in their younger years?
This is an all too common phenomenon occurring every day in colleges and universities across the country. As educators, we simply must do better to help students better understand the financial challenges ahead. Default rates on student loans are at an all-time high and starting salaries of recent graduates are less and less commensurate with the accumulation of debt with which many graduates embark on their new chosen careers.
With back to school time just around the corner, be sure you build your lesson plans for next school year to include lessons and activities that present college funding options, explain the cost of education, and also prepare young people to deal with the student loan payments that are sure to come upon graduation.
I hope everyone is having a terrific summer thus far and hope you are energizing yourself in preparation for a new year of learning in personal finance education and social media in the classroom!
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