The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/10/09 Section: Opinions

Financial finesse

The University should require students to take a course in money management.

Do you know what a 401K is? What about a Certificate Deposit? An I Bond? How about a municipal bond? A corporate bond? A bond fund?

Chances are, unless you're enrolled in Terry, you have no clue what we're talking about. And that's a problem.

The U.S. is in the midst of one of the worst financial crises in decades, and many of us have no idea how to manage our own funds.

Think about your friends who take out student loans on whim, not considering the amount of interest they will have to pay back a few years down the road.

We probably all know someone who has countless credit cards and is frantically trying to pay them off and consolidate them.

Sure, it's important to establish a good credit score, but it's possible to do that without charging everything you purchase.

Which is why we think the University should require all students take a seminar in managing personal finances. It could be similar to those one-hour required PE classes - pass/fail, maybe not even lasting an entire semester.

But the practical information it would offer likely would more than outweigh the costs involved.

The course could include things such as:

Investment strategies: stocks, bonds and mutual funds

- How to do your taxes
- Financial planning
- Credit card traps and how to reduce debt
- How to read a mutual fund prospectus
- Budgeting and cash-flow management
- Managing income taxes
- Managing monetary assets
- Risk management and property/liability insurance
- Health care planning
- Life insurance planning
- Retirement planning
- Buying a house

Yes, this class is possible. We made this list by checking out existing finance management classes at other universities.

We should invest our tuition now, and reap the returns post-graduation.

- Shannon Otto for the editorial board

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools