Barnard Students Learn Financial Fluency through New Program
Linda Reals |
New York, NY-- By the time they graduate, students at Barnard College will learn how to wisely manage their finances and become savvier consumers through a new program that offers basic guidance on personal finance along with advanced instruction on investing, insurance, taxes, and other key financial matters. Students also get tips on apartment hunting and renting and how to live in New York City without going broke.
Through mini-courses offered in the evenings in residence halls and in a class-room setting, the Barnard Financial Fluency Program helps students develop good spending habits early, so they avoid some of the worst financial pitfalls young people come up against, such as overwhelming credit card debt. Basic courses teach budgeting, banking, credit cards, and identity theft. The more advanced component of the two-tier program explores taxes, insurance, individual financial risk tolerance and investing.
The program was initiated this spring with guidance from the offices of Financial Aid, Career Development and College Activities, all of which reported a noticeable increase in students' concerns about finances and spending. The program is supported by Laird Grant Groody, a Barnard trustee, and other alumnae are involved in teaching and development.
The program is particularly timely with trends showing young people lacking in the basics of money matters. A nationwide survey released on April 1 by the Federal Reserve showed that on average high school seniors could answer only 52 percent of questions about personal finance and economics correctly. The survey questions ranged from knowing whether interest earned on a savings account was taxable to defining what a pension is to understanding how interest is computed on credit cards. The Barnard program is directed by Linda Reals, an alumna who worked in banking on Wall Street for several years and later in university relations for a leading magazine publisher. To develop a targeted program, Reals met with current students and recent graduates as well as the administrators of the Financial Aid, Career Development, Residential Life, Well-Woman and Alcohol and Substance Abuse offices.
"College is usually the first time when students start making their own decisions and take on more responsibility" said Reals. "On top of this, they are being marketed by a variety of credit marketers and financial institutions. The goal of Barnard's program is to provide them with the proper tools to make educated financial decisions."
Barnard's pilot program, managed by the Office of Career Development, covers the fundamentals of managing personal finances and is applicable to all students regardless of their year at Barnard or their post graduation career interests.
"We have long recognized the need for financial competence, from the basics for the first-year students, to more advanced topics for seniors," said Jane Celwyn, Director of the Career Development Office.
The advanced component is targeted towards students with an interest in the financial marketplace and/or finance careers. Topics include taxes, investing and reading a balance & income statement, and the different sectors of Wall Street (capital markets, equity research, brokerages, instruments of the market and regulatory agencies.) The advanced component will be taught by Barnard alumnae experts participating in the program.
All of the evening non-credit mini-courses are taught both in a classroom-setting and in residence halls. According to Reals, student response has been overwhelmingly positive and, already this spring, nine mini-courses have been completed. Reals is in the process of expanding the program and hopes to connect with more student organizations. For example, a special one-day workshop on investing and savings is planned for graduating seniors at the upcoming "Seniors Cross Roads Conference."
Only four states require a course on personal finance in order to graduate from high school. Educators point to this development as a consequence of budget cuts that have forced many education districts to shift money from other areas to classes at the heart of federal education reforms, such as reading and math. Contact: Petra Tuomi, Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-7907, ptuomi@barnard.edu
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