Educating your students about finances

Today I saw a great example of how not educating young adults about finances can be a big problem. A student anonymously called into a radio program in Atlanta and outlined how she had been given $90,000 for college by her grandparents to pay for her college. She ran through the money after her junior year because she had tapped the money for vacations and other things she “needed” not realizing she should have budgeted the money to last her through college.

Now she is stuck and doesn’t know what to do. We won’t go into what the hosts said (get a job, loan, etc.) but the big point that can be taken from this for other students, their parents and you the counselor is that many students don’t have any financial education. It is important to begin educating them while they are in school before they get in a situation where they are in debt and don’t know what to do.

There are many great courses and reference materials out there that can help students get a better grasp on how to budget, save money and all the lessons that need to be learned before they get out into the real world. Showing them the linked article about this students plight might  be a great start – http://finance.yahoo.com/news/a-college-student-blows-inheritance-bert-show-205833329.html