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| Money is Sweet!!! |
Executive
Summary
Spending is a universal matter among today’s college students
and those in the past. Emphasizing on budgeting as a
major notion to all students who join college gives an opportunity for every
student to learn how to correct spending can be reached. This article analyses the
use of budgetary measures to attain positive results in
spending. As a point of concern, curtailing disbursements remains the leading
generally accepted tactic towards avoiding debt heaps while in college.
Moreover, it also explores how best students can live a modest life to
reduce the load on their parents, especially when it comes to supporting them
in paying off their college fees. Following how college students do their
purchasing and their outlay habits, student’s money management skills can
be questioned and weighed.
Key Words: Budgeting, Spending.
Introduction
Managing money in college, coupled with
today’s higher education costs makes most students disgraceful for living on a
restricted budget. This also makes them try as much as thinkable to magnify
their cash inflow. Today, students must decide on short-range savings and
borrowing for a vacation, a deposit for rent, and manage their personal health
and life protection needs (Chen & Volpe, 1998). According to Marsha (2011),
many people consider the attainment of personal effects as a principal focus in
their lives. These are the type of people who willingly make outsized
sacrifices to acquire sought after stuff and possessions. Additionally, they
dedicate considerable time in planning key future purchases and visualizing
future spending outcomes. It is pertinent to give children monies before
becoming college students without checking their accounts. This allows freedom
to practice spending responsibly because managing personal funds have
increasingly evolved to be a very important facet in today’s world economies
(Chen & Volpe, 1998). As an opinion, helping students learn how to make
clever choices with their money and achieve financial obligations makes their
lives safer and stress-free.
A
college spending perspective
College students, especially in the
Western world do not take the advice of their mentors or parents seriously when
it often comes to financial management and responsibility. Many social critics
that focus on spending habits of individuals have blamed extreme debt and other
unsafe financial conduct on materialistic trends that are perceived as
“inherent in Western society” (Marsha, 2011, P. 5). Spending habits that will
make graduates poor are always associated either with the myth that everyone
these days is finishing college broke or in debt. Frequently, buying
new items instead of looking for old items like; used textbooks, used
furniture, and other used school supplies accounts for students’ higher
expenditures in college.
According to Chen & Volpe (1998), it is also proven that individuals with
less knowledge tend to hold wrong opinions and make incorrect decisions in the
areas regarding savings, borrowing, as well as investments. This is usually
common among uninformed college students, yet various attempts have been made
to introduce money management courses to these people to move them out of the
terrible box.
Knowing how to budget in college is a discipline that takes time to master, yet
it cannot be achieved by taking a forum, an economics course unit, or
overnight. On the other hand, when persons cannot manage their funds, it
becomes a society’s challenge to be addressed (Chen & Volpe, 1998).
Why
college students spend lavishly
Most students do not set years of
waiting and having actually saved up the money for what they intend to acquire
in their future. Too often, I see students rushing to buy the latest and the greatest technology even in poor countries like Uganda. Today’s present belief
is that all you need as a student, assumed, is a basic smartphone and a
standard laptop in the technology-wise college part of life. Notably,
possessions like having electronic game equipment or a good television set are
also described as a way to enhance social contacts among male college students
(Marsha, 2011).
Many college students feel pleased to buy the best plasma TV or the latest
high-end laptop but are not sure of what follows the order of the day when it
comes to accounting for their expenditure. In addition, many students feel that
working hard at school gives them entitlement purchases like; a new car, a
super-rank bike. This is because of their craving to arrive at school in style.
In the real world, driving the new car to school may cost more than a student’s
tuition. Yet, the cost of that car, insurance, gas and other maintenance costs,
interest payments, and parking fees will only put that student into debt. In a
research conducted by Marsha (2011), “one college student was looking forward
to buying a car so she could socialize more frequently with friends and have
more control over those social interactions” (p. 14).
On the other hand, taking random courses without considering how they will help
you progress toward your degree accounts for wasteful expenditures by college
students. That is to say, every time you take an unnecessary course, you are
barely tossing money away that could have been used to pay for courses that
help you get the degree, or possibly, could have deposited it in a high return
savings account.
Budgeting
and purchasing
Largely, many have fallen victims to at
least one of the strange spending routines. It is so fortunate that once you
have learned how to draw a parallel between the two, that is; budgeting and
purchasing, life during college becomes easier and simpler. Since most parents
tell their offspring that paying for college is their responsibility,
especially in the Western nations, students have always tried to get as many
grants and scholarships as possible. That is to say, friends and family who
want to show love to their intimates give some pocket money and credit college
students’ accounts as perfect gifts.
While others have attended college with so many financial aid grants and
scholarships, many have been able to pay without resorting to borrowing due to
proper budgeting. Therefore, learning from past mistakes has some benefits when
it comes to budgeting and spending. According to Mandell (2008) in
his literacy survey, as cited by Llewellyn (2012), most college students are
financially knowledgeable. However, the result indicated that only a lower
percentage of students graduate from college with budgeting and decision
skills. Therefore, the remaining higher percentage makes critical financial
decisions poorly due to inefficiency.
Money
management courses and benefits on many college students
According to Chen & Volpe (1998),
“One reason for the low level of knowledge is the systematic lack of sound
personal finance education in college curricula”. (p.6). similarly, “most of
the higher education institutions put little emphasis on students’ personal
finance education”. (Danes &Hira, 1987) cited by Chen & Volpe (1998, P.
6). Llewellyn (2012) argues the Financial Literacy and Education Commission to
team up with the Department of Education and State governments to cultivate a
consistent strategy for providing financial training to students in the college
institutions. These would speed the smooth provision of viable money management
education programs.
Surprisingly, most available research studies concentrate on high school
students' and adults’ financial literacy levels. Yet, a small number of them
have surveyed college students (Chen & Volpe, 1998). Therefore, Chen &
Volpe (1998) suggest that the analysis of financial literacy shows how the
level of finance knowledge tends to influence people's opinions, beliefs, as
well as their final choices. It is also recorded that more members from the
less conversant group often make erroneous choices. They also tend to hold
wrong beliefs and make incorrect decisions when it comes to general knowledge
on savings, borrowing, and investments (Chen & Volpe, 1998). When taking
money management courses, focusing on customized budget planning will make
students learn how to budget practically.
Building confidence, applying real-world skills, and displaying functional
behaviors related to money management would make college students make better
financial resource decisions, harness earning dimensions, care for their
belongings while adapting to sudden events. This is because; the application of
sound foundational financial decision-making principles is expected immediately
after finalizing the program and in the future, which is of great benefit to
themselves and their folks. Consequently, charting monetary units learning at
age five followed by taking a special finance course at age seventeen would
prove equally ineffective if formal financial education is not offered sooner
than high school, preferably from prime school (Llewellyn, 2012).
Moreover, Chen & Volpe(1998) claim that “together with evidence provided by
the research conducted in the past three decades, the findings of this study
suggest that there is a systematic lack of personal finance education in our
education system” (p. 16). While Marsha(2011) on another hand, states that a
wide-range learning curriculum makes students learn various credit terms, the
constituents of an everyday budget, comparing different credit deals and their
personal credit ranking, as well as related crucial realities and skills. The
foretelling skill of individual finance understanding shows that improving
college students' awareness is vital.
Eventually, it is clear that “without adequate knowledge, they are more likely
to make mistakes in the real world” (Chen & Volpe, 1998, p. 16). The
results of several studies suggest that adults do not have a good command of
personal finance and investments. The conclusion is that students are exiting
college schools when they are short of competency to make critical financial
decisions affecting their lives (Chen & Volpe, 1998).
Acquiring
a better spending exercise in college and its benefits
At whatever time I received money while
attending school, the habit of saving some and spending the rest lavishly was
my only road to happiness and satisfaction. Considering the past, I wish I had
been more cautious with my money because it would have put me in a better
condition as compared to my status. The overhead being the instance, I sought
to share some recovering manners to use in your spending money or any other
dividend.
In the first course, advancing the financial literacy of students from pre‐nursery
through college helps develop a comprehensive curriculum with many initiatives
to offer support and stimulate awareness among college students on the day-to-day
spending involvements (Llewellyn, 2012). There is no proven formula when it
comes to styles of better spending. Yet, media literacy programs can help
college students learn to question media messages that are transformational.
These are media literacy programs target elementary, high school, and college
students.
College students are expected to develop and use critical thinking skills when
interacting with communal media. Openly, integrating financial literacy within
media programs reduces the influence of advertising messages to create
transformation expectations. Thus, probably help college students manage their
fondness to overspend with an improved approach (Marsha, 2011).
In order to spend wisely, start mounting up your emergency fund. This can be a
smart move since being in college does not mean that emergencies will not
surface. If you have not done so by this time, establishing an emergency fund
looks crazy. However, keeping your money in a high return savings account can
even help it gain a lot of interest while you attend school. Many college
students have lower necessary expenses, to the extent that even a small amount
of offers from friends can be of a big advantage. Each semester, a student can
grow the fund with your investments. An additional benefit will be seen after
graduating because of having a bit of enough financial needs to help you shift
onto the real world.
There is one belief that by staying in universities or colleges longer,
students will naturally pick up more about private finance responsibility. It
is argued by (Chen & Volpe, 1998) that students do not gain more
familiarity over personal funds and budgeting by just taking more time in
college learning other distinct subjects. Instead, they can “learn the subject
through a business course, seminars, or their own mistakes” (Chen & Volpe,
1998, p. 10). Therefore, the opinion that business majors are more educative
than non-business majors are. In order to do well in the field of budgeting and
spending, college students must have preceding exposure to personal financial
management. This means that college students are not more literate just because
they have attained a higher education level (Chen & Volpe, 1998).
Fortunately, for college students, the other best way to spend minimally is by
setting aside some money for fun. Having worked so hard, luxuriating a bit, of
your earning is not a strange idea. Yet, you must remember to set a boundary
and hold unto it. Putting aside some money for the nearby vacation or holiday
in your savings account may serve as an example. With that manner, you can have
a pleasing experience to recall without getting distressed about debt. However,
this should not be taken as compulsory, yet it is up to you as to what fun you
unconditionally consider gratifying.
Conclusion
Many college students do not get this
knowledge even after attending several workshops, seminars, and courses on
financial literacy. Even though you are starting young, you will probably gain
the advantage by working in your favor through investing for your long-standing
future prospects. The simple and fundamental point of view is that you become
duty-bound to do whatsoever you can to style up good habits as timely as
possible. Subsequently, you will be contented that you started on the right
base after you have graduated.
Therefore, if you are still in college like me, you need to apply for as many
scholarships and grants that you can at the time of realization. With
assurance, this takes some work, yet it is soundly worth the determination. On
the other hand, for those of you who have made an exit from college, the
challenge is that if you were given a second chance to go back; what would you
change, (in case of anything)? Finally, there is an urgent need for college
students to ascertain the current level of their financial literacy in relation
to their behavior, knowledge, as well as accurate decision‐making.
Bibliography
Chen, H., & Volpe, R. P. (1998). Financial services review. An
analysis of personal financial literacy among college students, 7 (2),
107-128.doi: ISSN: 1057-0810
Llewellyn, T. R. (2012). Financial literacy of college students and the need
for compulsory financial education. A senior honors thesis, 1-56.
Marsha, L. R. (2011). Materialism, transformation expectations, and spending:
Implications for credit use. 1-59.
