Twice since establishing my emergency fund last August, I’ve drained it (or nearly drained it). First to fix my car when the anti-lock brakes, break pads, alignment, and tires were shot, and then again a few weeks ago when my tax bill came due. Both times, I was extremely glad to have my emergency fund on hand!

Obviously I think an emergency fund is important for me - you can tell just from the fact that I have one and have used it. But is it really just as important for my fellow college students?

Yes.

If you own any object that you have come to rely on, but would be costly to replace or repair, then you need an emergency fund. Nearly every college student I know has a car or a computer - most have both. But very few of them could cover the cost of a major repair without feeling the pain. And while some people are currently saving up for their next computer, most of them would be screwed if their current computer gave out and they had to replace it today.

Wouldn’t you like to be smarter than that? Wouldn’t it be nice to have some cushion against catastrophe?

Sure, you might have your parents to lean on in times of crisis. Then again, you might not. What happens if one of your parents loses their job, and then your car breaks down? Or maybe your parents will decide that replacing a broken computer is your responsibility now that you’re at school. These things may not happen, but the ability (or willingness) of your parents to bail you out is not guaranteed.

Not to mention that showing some financial responsibility is the best way to convince your parents to help you out! My parents offered to pay for half of my car repair back in November, since they knew I could pay for the other half. By showing willingness to take responsibility for my car, I impressed my parents enough to get some additional help from them.

And setting up an emergency fund can really be quite painless.

Make it automatic. Figure out how much a month you can give up and have it automatically moved from your checking account to savings every month (this is easy to set up online at most banks). Even if you can only put aside a small amount (like $10 a month) it will add up. And it’s a good start, anyway - you can always increase the amount per month later.

I keep my emergency fund in a high yield savings account at ING Direct. I used a $250 student loan refund to start the account, and got a $25 bonus. You can too, using one of my ING referral links. If you decide to go that route, I suggest you start your emergency fund in your regular bank savings account, until you’ve saved up the $250 to start an ING account, and get the $25 bonus.

Define what constitutes an emergency.

I’m not going to tell you exactly what you should do with your money, but your emergency fund will serve you better if you set up some rules for it. Most personal finance books say that an emergency fund shouldn’t be for car or computer repairs - that you should anticipate these expenses and set up separate funds for them. But while I’m still in college, I find it easier just to have an all-encompassing emergency fund, and allow myself to use it for these expenses, as long as they’re necessary. Once I’m out of school and have greater income, I’ll start separate a repairs fund.

But “necessary” still doesn’t include things like say… spring break in Cancun. Rather, an emergency fund should be for if you end up stuck in the airport trying to come back from Cancun, and you suddenly need to buy an emergency ticket to get home. If you drain the fund for the trip itself, you won’t have the fund to help you if an actual emergency occurs!

The best emergency fund is one that you never have to use.

Part of your emergency “fund” should be the smart handling of objects you can’t live without. Pick up an external hard drive (or some blank DVDs) and make backups of the files on your computer. Take good care of your car - get the oil changed when you should and get it checked out regularly.

I know this is some common sense-y stuff, but the hard part is remembering to do it. When you’re in crisis mode, dealing with a dozen project deadlines and club activities and an on-campus job and… everything else… preventative stuff takes a back burner. The best thing to do is pick an hour a week, and set it aside for taking care of things that are important - but not urgent - like preventative maintenance.

Start your emergency fund now, and you’ll be miles ahead of the game.

The best part is that you’ll have that emergency fund started already when you graduate. Sure, you’ll probably need to expand it for your new, post-graduate lifestyle, but you’ll already be two steps ahead of everyone else. Most people don’t realize until years after college that they need an emergency fund, and once they do, most people still don’t make one. You’ll already know you need one, and have one started!

I know you’ll be thanking me for this later!

The following is a guest post by Tisha Kulak. Tisha is a writer for www.creditorweb.com, where she writes about student credit cards and responsible credit card use.

Credit cards and college students often go hand in hand. Emergency preparedness is a key factor in acquiring a credit card, especially in the case of a college freshman leaving home for the first time.

There is obviously a big learning curve starting out as a newbie to the college campus life. Getting orientated and situated can be a frustrating experience in the first few weeks. This is especially true when everyone else is also in a mad rush to get books and supplies they find the need once classes have begun. For students who can no longer rely on Mom and Dad to be right there with them, it is a wise choice to have a credit card in the event of such emergencies.

Credit cards, like college, are a huge responsibility. Both are also responsibilities that should not be taken lightly. Going off to college is an exciting time of perhaps new-found independence. Without a strict set of guidelines, credit cards can often be misused for non-related emergencies. Any person who is authorized to use a credit card should have full understanding that there are repercussions involved in making purchases. Students, who are now free to make most of their own decisions, need to fully understand that each of those decisions could potentially affect the rest of their lives. Credit cards are a perfect example of this.

Racking up thousands of dollars in credit card debt is not the way you want to start off your financial future. Purchases should be done only in emergency situations in order to keep your payments low and prevent additional fees and interest being tacked on. Impulse spending is the last thing you want to do with a credit card. Sure it seems to be free now, but there is no doubt you will be paying for it for a long time to come.

In addition to paying your bills in a timely manner, controlling your spending, and establishing a budget, it is also imperative that, as holder of the credit card, there is a responsibility to protect your information and keep your cards safe from other people. When first starting a new semester, odds are good that a whole new group of people will be hanging around. Keep credit cards in your possession at all times and never, ever give out credit card numbers to anyone.

It is also good practice even before leaving home that you catalogue the credit company’s name, address, contact phone number, and your account number and leave the list safe with your parents - in case your cards are stolen or misused illegally. You should also do this with all of your banking information and other important documents that could be potentially hazardous if it found its way into the wrong hands.

Credit cards are a big responsibility for anyone. College students already have a lot of new things to experience and learn. Being prepared and utilizing credit cards wisely will help jumpstart the building of a strong financial foundation as well as experience in making smart choices for the future.

* * * *

Stephanie says: I firmly believe in the ability of a college student to handle a credit card wisely, but we often see that just doesn’t happen. My advice to every college student who applies is this: remember exactly what that little piece of plastic is when you use it: a loan.

I’d be graduating this May - if I hadn’t taken time off last year - and so many of my friends are seniors, frantically working on their theses or job hunting or filling out applications for graduate school. And while the jokes are flying around (Marge Simpson: “Don’t make fun of grad students, they made a poor life choice!”), grad school is a serious choice that may not be so easy to make.

In fact, yesterday I received an email from a friend of mine:

Here’s a finance question for you.
Two fold.
One: Should I go to grad school? It requires getting about $100,000 in loans.
Two: If I go to said graduate school, what loans do you recommend?

It’s also about time I got to thinking about what I should do after graduation, so this is a pretty timely question.

Common sense tells us that more school = higher salaries. But we have to be leery of falling into the trap of thinking that more school is ALWAYS going to be better - after all, I’m still not entirely sure that going to film school was a great idea.

A report by the College Board titled “Education Pays: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society” [PDF] lists the median salaries for different degree holders. A Bachelor’s degree can get around $49,900 a year, while a Master’s Degree bumps it up to $59,500. A professional degree has a whopping median of $95,700.

But it’s important to keep in mind that those numbers are medians, meaning that half of degree holders earn more than that, but the other half earn less. A higher degree is no guarantee of increased earnings, although it is a good indicator.

Kiplinger.com has a great article called The Back-to-School Decision, with some insights on how to go about deciding whether grad school is a smart bet. The first piece of advice: examine your motivation. The article offers up some examples of good, bad, and middle-ground motivations:

• Your firm won’t promote you to the position you want unless you have an advanced degree: right reason.
• You’re waiting for the job market to improve: wrong reason.
• You want to pursue a different field of study: maybe the right reason.
• You want to buy time because you aren’t sure what you want to do with your life or you don’t feel ready for the working world: wrong reason.

If you’re considering grad school for any of the wrong reasons, hold of and spend some time working first. The most important takeaway here? You can always go back to school later.

But come on, you guys aren’t asking me because you want hear any of that - you’re here to find out the answer to the money question. Is grad school a good idea financially?

Loans: Ya Gotta Pay Em Back

What it all comes down to, from the hard numbers side, is whether you’re going to be able to comfortably make the payments on your grad school loans. The first, most important, thing here is to look at your whole picture - that is, the total of your grad and undergrad loans. They may seem different to you now, but you’ve got to pay them all back, so use the whole number when you calculate.

A study conducted by student loan lender Nellie May (College on Credit: How Borrowers Perceive their Education Debt [PDF]) found that stress about student loan repayment was directly related to the percentage of monthly income that borrowers were required to pay toward their loans. That sentence was kinda a mouthful, so let me put it bluntly: The more you have to pay back per month, the more stressed out you will be.

Borrowers who have to pay less than 7% of their monthly income toward student loans generally do not feel stressed about their debt. Those who pay 7-11% of their monthly gross income feel a mild amount of stress. People who pay 12-16% report feeling overwhelmed by their debt, and those paying 17%+… well, you can pretty much guess that they’re going out of their minds.

There’s a great Loan Repayment Calculator over at FinAid that can tell you what income you’ll need to be making in order to keep your loan payments less than 10% of your monthly gross income.

If you run my friend’s estimate of $100,000 in loans through the calculator, you’ll find that she’ll need a yearly salary of at least $138,096 in order to keep her loan payments under 10% of her monthly gross. This means that every year she doesn’t make at least that much, she’ll be feeling the pain of her loans in a very big way.

And that’s assuming she doesn’t have any undergraduate debt, which is something I’m simply not sure of.

Not All Doom and Gloom

I hate feeling like I’m the bad guy, pointing out the big numbers involved in borrowing to go to grad school. So, I want to end on the high note here: finding free money to help pay for school, to help cut down on the amount of loans you need, is what will make up the difference.

The Kiplinger’s article suggests checking out the three “ships”: Assistanships, Fellowships, and Scholarships. If these aren’t enough to bring the amount you need to borrow down to an acceptable level, you may have to hold off for a little while. (Yes, this is that “you can always go back to school later” thing.)

However, if the “ships” do bring your necessary debt down enough, then you can start shopping for loans. Kiplinger’s also has a great article on Paying for Grad School that describes the federal loans available to you - always, always, always exhaust the federal loans before getting private loans!

If the numbers are too high, and it looks like grad school isn’t for you right now… don’t lose hope yet - during your job search, try and find work with an employer that offers tuition reimbursement benefits. Getting your employer to foot part of the bill can also make a huge difference, and the extra work experience might give you a leg up in the application process!

The Takeaway

More than anything, I would just like to see people stop and think and run the numbers before diving into grad school. Just like I dove headfirst into film school, thinking that I would just pay for it however was necessary and it would all be fine and dandy… that didn’t work out too well for me, and it seems like the stakes are even higher with a graduate degree.

Just run the numbers - please? Do it for me, but more importantly - do it for yourself. No one is going to pay back those loans but future-you. And believe me, there’s no one you want pissed off at you less than future-you!

Tax time is in full swing, and as usual, I’m sitting around waiting for my last few pieces of paperwork to come in so that I can do my taxes. Every year, I strive to get my own taxes, and my mother’s, done as quickly as possible so that I can fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), a bane of my existence, in hopes of getting as much aid as possible (not that it has really helped in any of the previous years).

I have a special hatred in my heart of hearts for the FAFSA. I think it’s a broken system indicative of greater problems in the US Department of Education, but its own problems are great enough to set my teeth on edge every time I hear someone sound out “Faaaph-sa.”

Who’s Your Daddy?

The FAFSA puts a special emphasis on everyone being a dependent, which often scams a lot of students out of aid that they might otherwise receive. Got rich parents that refuse to pay for your schooling at all? The FAFSA doesn’t care - it doesn’t even ask if you live with your parents, just when you were born, whether your parents are alive, and whether you yourself have a spouse or dependents.

Here’s a fun example: my situation for this year’s taxes and FAFSA. The IRS does not consider me a dependent of my parents, because I am over 19 and was only enrolled in school for 4 months of 2007 (you become a dependent when you’re enrolled for 5 months of the year). However, the FAFSA doesn’t even ask if the IRS considers you a dependent - it just assumes I am. Left hand, do you even know there is a right hand, let alone what it’s doing?

I’m sorry if this comes off as an angry rant - I’m steamed, but in the same calm, already-beaten-down demeanor that I have every year when dealing with the FAFSA. I know it’s broken, but I also know that I have to comply with their awkward regulations and just do it, if I want any financial aid at all.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes (Refusing to Face the Strange)

The information the FAFSA uses to assess financial need for the 2008-2009 school year comes from your (and most likely, your parents’) 2007 income. Therefore, things like sudden job loss or disability or divorce are not taken into account, if they happened late in 2007 or early 2008.

Your combined incomes on paper may be $150,000, but if they’re suddenly dropped for any of those reasons, the FAFSA just doesn’t care - your financial need is that of a family making $150,000, not what you’re really making.

Siblings? What Siblings? We Don’t See Any Siblings!

A good friend of mine had smart parents who knew that the fact that they made a good living would make it hard for their three children to get financial aid. So they put aside a good chunk of money to send the kids off to college when the time came.

So when my friend, the oldest of the three, filled out the FAFSA, and found that it only asked how many siblings he had in college. He checked none, and the FAFSA assumed that all of the money his parents had set aside was for him. The story is different this year, with his two sisters both enrolling, but the financial gouge that first year caused to him to have to put off going to his first choice school, and attend community college for two years instead, and then transfer.

Which is not, by the way, to knock community college. For my friend, it was the best choice and seems to have served him well and he’s very happy now that he’s at his first choice school. However, this happy ending for him can not necessarily be replicated by everyone.

I, for example, couldn’t have done anything like that. I was gearing up for film school, a heartless program with few general education credits. If you spend two years at community college, it won’t save you a single moment in film school (at least at the one I attended, and many others) - no, the program is set up to take you a full four years, no matter what. But as I’m fond of saying since I dropped out of film school - it’s not for poor kids.

All In the Family

Odd family configurations are foreign to the FAFSA calculation. Sure, there’s considerations for divorces and non-parental guardians, but it doesn’t go far enough. This is one of FAFSA’s more ambiguous quirks: for some people, it’s actually helpful, but for other’s, it’s just another knock against them.

Got legal guardians who don’t actually provide you a home or any financial support at all? The FAFSA counts their incomes all the same. Have a non-legal guardian, such as the unrecognized same-sex spouse of a parent? Oh, well, the FAFSA doesn’t count them, unless they provide more than half of your support. (The take-away here? Not having marriage equality means children of same-sex couples may be getting a greater boost in financial aid - think about that!)

So What’s to Be Done (Other Than Seethe)?

On the personal level? Fill out the form diligently, and take your own initiative to talk to your school’s financial aid office about the particulars of your own situation. Also, put a certain amount of effort into seeking out private scholarships.

On the large scale, well, it’s all about Department of Education reform. Ask your representatives what they plan to do about the broken FAFSA - after all, you are their constituents!

Does anyone have a FAFSA or financial aid nightmare to share?

Photo credit: Bent Tree News

In an off-handed comment to a fellow student, my Marketing professor asked how much we were paying for the class, per hour. He estimated it at $45 per hour, and I, with a thirst for numbers that rivals the thirst of Tantalus, decided to actually do the math.

Congratulations to the two of you who are still reading after that intro, and have not yet been scared away by my obsession with math.

I did a rough calculation in class, based on the number of credit hours I was taking. But when I got home later, I started thinking about the other factors involved. Don’t I pay to take the final exam? Aren’t I really paying for the privilege to do homework and study?

The final question comes down to: How much do I pay, per hour, for school, and am I getting good enough grades to justify that price?

So I made a spreadsheet. In fact, I made it and posted it on this site, so if you want to download it, you can. You can download it just to see my calculations, or you can download it to calculate the rate you’re paying for your schooling!

The Hourly Cost of College - click to download!

Observations from my Own Data
As you can see if you grab the spreadsheet, I’m paying $52.51 per hour for my college education. This is based on doing only 5 hours a week of homework outside of class - which is pretty accurate for my current habits, and also a little sad.

The good news is that I can lower that hourly rate by putting in more hours of work. $52.51 sounds pretty high for my current B average - but if I put in more hours, I can pay less per hour for a B+!

Most professors have told me that each class is probably going to require twice the number of hours outside of class as homework and studying. For example, my 4-hour-a-week class should require 8 hours a week of studying and homework. That sounds a little crazy for my liberal arts classes, but it certainly was true of my film classes - plus some! So I guess it evens out.

So if I change the number of homework hours in the spreadsheet from 5 to the recommended number, 20, my rate drops to…. $25.93.

Obviously, this sort of number is extremely arbitrary. The total amount I pay for tuition has nothing to do with how many hours of work I put in. But the purpose of these numbers is really to re-frame my education in terms of finances - to trick myself into procrastinating less by telling myself I’m saving money by studying more.

Observations from a Friend
Everyone is going to use this spreadsheet a bit differently. When I made the “other” category, I was thinking of hours spent doing homework and studying outside of class. But when I sent the spreadsheet to a friend, he included all of the clubs and activities that he wouldn’t be doing if he weren’t in school.

This is an entirely valid way to look at it - not only is he paying to be educated, but he’s paying for all of the campus activities he engages in.

His rate, since he’s much more studious and active than I am, came to a sweet $23.44 an hour.

After calculating that, he did something else I didn’t do: he factored in his scholarships. I decided not to bother, because I knew if I started down that road, I’d start trying to factor in my loans and the interest I’d pay on them - and then there’d be too much math - even for me!

After factoring in his scholarship, his rate dropped down to $14.12 an hour. Lesson learned? Scholarships matter.

Your Turn
I would love to see what some other people get. I’m not very studious, and I go to a rather expensive school, some I’m interested in the rates others are paying. If you are comfortable sharing your rates in the comments or by email, I’d love it!

Poorer Than You means a great many things to me these days. It’s the first thing I check on when I wake up in the morning (obsessive much?) and I’m constantly jotting things down in a notebook when I get ideas for entries. It’s held me accountable for my own finances, giving me a push to keep going. Without it, I honestly don’t know if I would be where I am today.

I’ve known about The Blogging Scholarship for some time - longer than Poorer Than You has existed, actually. I’ve had many different blogs for many years, but all of them before PTY were personal, and never seemed appropriate to submit for the scholarship application. But this year, with PTY healthy and nearing its first anniversary, I decided to throw my hat into the ring.

And wouldn’t you know it, I’m a finalist. The scholarship committee reviewed my application and, along with 19 other finalists, I’m enjoying a position of honor right now. I’ll tell you: I’m truly ecstatic just to have been chosen as a finalist. And now the decision is up to voters. So here’s my humble plea:

 
(Voting ends October 28th)

Added bonus for PTY stalkers: They listed my last name! It’s cool - I’m not the only Stephanie Collins in the world. In fact, I’m no where near the first result that comes up on Google - that honor goes to Stephanie Collins the renowned body builder! (Or maybe that is me… you don’t know!)

I hope that you check out the blogs of the other finalists as well. I know I’m making my way through the list! I also hope that those among you that have blogs will take the time to write a post about the Blogging Scholarship. I think it’s an excellent idea that rewards people for a sometimes-thankless activity. Not to mention we could all use a bit of help paying for school!

I get this question a lot. Some people want to know if I, personally, would have avoided film school in the first place because of all the debt I wound up with. Some people are aspiring filmmakers that wonder if film school is a good idea for them. And some people are just trying to reaffirm their own suspicion that art school of any kind is a waste of money. So, what’s the answer? Is a film degree worth the price? The answer is, of course, absolutely maybe.

I found a couple of articles on Digital Video Guru that outline ten reasons you shouldn’t go to film school and ten reasons you should go to film school. If you have any interest in film school (or in skipping it and going straight into the industry or independent films), you should definitely read those two lists. If you’re just curious, here are the 20 reasons without explanation:

Reasons Not to Go to Film School:

1. Your favorite filmmaker didn’t go to film school.
2. Digital Video.
3. Film school is expensive.
4. The Internet.
5. The Long Tail.
6. Netflix + books = critical studies.
7. Learn by doing.
8. You can’t teach art. Can you?
9. Don’t study film, study life.
10. You either have it or you don’t.

All of these are true, but #3 and #7 are perhaps the most important. The “learn by doing” principle is why I picked the film school that I go to - the moment you enter the door, they shove a camera in your hand and tell you the only way to learn to make films is to make films.

Reasons To Go to Film School:

1. Peer connections.
2. Industry connections.
3. Technical know-how.
4. Intelligent feedback.
5. Mentors to push you.
6. History and theory.
7. Credibility.
8. Time for your projects.
9. Stay the course.
10. You either have it or you don’t.

I agree entirely with this list as well. #1 is the reason I always cite for film school being a near-necessity. That old adage of “In show business, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” is 80% right. What you know is important, but you can know everything there is to know about filmmaking and not be able to make anything because you don’t have a network. Film is still a collaborative art.

There are a few things I would like to add, as well. Film school is a huge undertaking. If you take two years of film school and change your mind, you might have trouble getting your credits to transfer into another major. Additionally, film as a major isn’t offered by most state schools (except, of course, California), so you’re likely looking at an expensive private school (or the high cost of out-of-state tuition for California, unless you happen to already live there).

So is film school worth the cost? I’m still not sure for myself, so I certainly can’t answer the question for you. It’s a highly competitive industry with some huge barriers to entry. And a film degree isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on if you decide to go into any other industry. But if film is really what you want to do, then film school could give you the leg up you need to break into the industry or to start yourself off in independent work.

It’s Student Loan Refund Open Season, and the line at Student Financial Services is about to get pretty long. For college freshman and anyone else who might not know what I’m talking about, Student Loan Refunds occur when you get more money from your financial aid than your school needs for your tuition and other billable expenses. And then they cut you a check for the difference.

So what’s to be done with this sudden, extra, seemingly-free money? “BUY BOOZE!” you say. And that’s a valid use of it (also not the best use of it), but I’m not necessarily talking about what you should spend it on. I’m talking about where you should put it.

You’re probably already making out the deposit slip to drop in your usual checking account at your brick-and-mortar bank. But is that really the best place for your money?

In a checking account, your money is basically just going to sit in the account until you’ve depleted it. Even in a regular savings account, it’s probably not going to earn more than .2% interest (a fifth of a percent). And sure, interest is good, but how much money is .2%, really?

What’s the average you get back on a refund check? I don’t know, but I’ve never gotten more than $350. Some people actually get enough from their checks to pay for their off-campus room and board for the semester, so it might be a lot higher, like $2,000. So let’s just use $500 for the example, because it’s nice and round.

So $500 in your savings account earning .2%. Now that $500 isn’t going to stay there for a solid year, but let’s pretend it did. After a year, you would have earned… *drum roll please…*

$1.00

Wow, that hardly seems worth it. In fact, considering you’ll deplete that $500, and won’t even earn a whole dollar, it doesn’t seem worth it at all to put it in the savings account instead of the checking.

But hold up - I’ve got an idea. In fact, it’s what I’ve done with this term’s refund already. Are you interested? I’ll be getting a 3.5% (not 3/10ths of a percent, a whole 3.5 percent) return on my refunds. And I got a $25 bonus.

So how much of a difference can 3.5% and a $25 bonus make? Well, to start with, there’s that $25 bonus. So we’re up to $525 in our example already. And $525 at 3.5% for the year would be… *drum roll again…*

$18.37 - putting the total up to $543.37. Without breaking a sweat.

Alright, alright, so you’re sold on the 3.5% with a $25 bonus idea - where can you get it? ING Direct’s Electric Orange Checking account. It works just like a regular checking account, with a few differences:

1. You get a 4% APY on money sitting in the checking account. You can also open a Orange Savings account with them, and link the accounts together. Money in the savings account earns 4.3%.
2. The account comes with a debit card, but no check book. If you need to send a check, they have an electric check system - or you can move the money to your brick-and-mortar checking account (so don’t cancel your old account!)
3. You get an Overdraft Line of Credit instead of “courtesy overdraft protections” - that thing where when your account drops below $0.00, instead of declining your purchase, your bank graciously lets the charge go through and then slaps you with a $35 fee? Yeah, instead of charging a flat, outrageous fee, ING charges a normal interest rate on the amount your account went below $0.00. If you manage to make a deposit in the next few days to bring the account back into the positive, you’d only be charged pennies - instead of $35.
4. You get a $25 bonus if you open the account with a referral link and your opening deposit is $250 or more.

So that refund check sitting in your checking account? The one that’s probably for $250 or more? Go open an account with it. Remember how I said you could move money from ING to your brick-and-mortar checking account? That link works both ways - you can move $250 from your regular checking to ING for the opening deposit.

So whether you’re saving this refund for next term’s textbooks, or you’re slowly draining it for expenses - it doesn’t really matter. Either way, you should be making some money off of it while it sits in your account. 

I had the privilege and the pleasure of being interviewed for REPORTER Magazine, the weekly campus magazine for Rochester Institute of Technology. For those of you unfamiliar with the REPORTER, it’s the only full color weekly college magazine in the US!

I was honored to be given the chance to share my story for an article on student debt, an issue that I unfortunately know a lot about, but also care a lot about, as well. I’d like to take a minute here and welcome anyone who’s come to the site because of the article, and help you to find your way around the site!

If you’re interested in more information about my dropping out of school, and then my return this quarter, then check out these posts:
Why I Left School (January)
Why I’m Going Back to School (May)

These posts might give you a little insight into my personal financial situation:
Financial Aid Dilemma (August)
Net Worth Update: August 2007
About Poorer Than You

And the following is a taste of the college-themed articles on the site:
The Road to Millions Starts at Age 16
Sold on Rented Textbooks?
College Freshman Checklist
Money Advice for the College Student

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Ahh, the first day of class - the day I am reminded that my school does not believe in holidays. That’s right - I’ve got class on Labor Day! Luckily, my first class isn’t until 4pm.

After stepping off the plane last week, I ran around to take care of all the paperwork needed to let me go to class today. This included finally making a decision about my financial aid dilemma. Aside from the usual chastising myself to look for more scholarships, the question really came down to the Federal Loan, a Private Loan, or a Prosper Loan.

After much talking and deliberating and looking up of interest rates, I decided to apply for the federal loan again this year. This loan will have negative consequences for my parents no matter what - if it’s approved, they will be the ones on the hook for the loan, and if it’s denied, then I will be awarded a Unsubsidized Direct Loan, and they’ll get a black mark on the credit report for being denied the loan.

Even so, we decided this was the best move. Every year we go through this, and every year we decide it’s the best option… which really, in a word, sucks. But it’s the best option because no matter what, I get the loan I need, and the interest rates aren’t too high. My parents just wish I would go ahead and graduate already, so that this stops happening every year!

I can’t wait for the loan to go through (whichever loan that may be) so that I can stop thinking about this for the rest of the year.