The document provides advice on managing money in college including creating a budget, cutting costs, applying for financial aid, balancing work and loans, managing credit wisely, and planning for the future. It discusses creating a budget with a 4 step process, ways to cut costs like recognizing needs vs wants and using discounts, types of financial aid and how to qualify, advantages and disadvantages of working and taking student loans, understanding credit scores and reports, and tips for financing life after graduation like saving regularly.

1. Managing Your Money

2. Your Turn
So far, how well or poorly are you
managing your money in college? Why is it
easy or difficult?

3. Living on a Budget
• Creating a budget
• Step 1: Gather basic information
• Step 2: Build a plan
• Step 3: Do a test run
• Step 4: Make adjustments
• Cutting costs
• Recognize the differences between your needs and wants
• Share expenses
• Consider the pros and cons of living on campus
• Use low-cost transportation
• Seek out discount entertainment options
• Embrace secondhand goods
• Avoid unnecessary fees

4. Getting Financial Aid
• Types of aid
• Need-based scholarships
• Merit scholarships
• Grants
• Work-study
• Co-op education
• Qualifying for aid
• Free Application for Federal Student Aid
• How to avoid losing your funding
• File for financial aid every year
• Meet all filing deadlines
• Inquire every year about criteria-based aid
• Inquire about campus jobs
• Consider asking for a reassessment of your eligibility for aid

5. Achieving a Balance between Working
and Borrowing
• Advantages and disadvantages of working
• Research possible occupations
• Build on your strengths and develop weaker skills
• Prepare a marketing strategy that sells you
• Write a convincing resume and cover letter
• Student loans
• Subsidized federal student loans
• Unsubsidized federal student loans
• Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (PLUS)
• Private loans

6. Managing Credit Wisely
• Credit score
• Derived from a credit report that contains information about
accounts in your name
• Understanding credit
• Beware of making only a minimum payment
• Avoid making late payments
• Credit cards should not be used to fund a lifestyle you cannot
afford
• Debit cards
• You don’t always have to carry cash
• The amount of purchases will be limited to the funds in your bank
• Commit your PIN to memory

7. Your Turn
Do you have your own credit card or one
that you own jointly with your parents? If
not, what are your reasons for not getting
one? If you do have a credit card, do you
feel you’re in control of the way you use
it? Why or why not? If you don’t have a
card, do you think you are ready for one?
Why or why not?

8. Planning for the Future
Financing life after graduation
• Plan now for your next step
• Keep your address current with the registrar even
when you have finished your degree or program
• Make a point of establishing a savings account and
adding to it regularly

9. Tech Tip: Create Wealth and Security
How to make money work for you
• Savings account
• Offers a secure place to grow your money
• IRA (Individual Retirement Account)
• Gives you a tax-deferred way to save for retirement
• 401(k)
• Employer-sponsored savings plan that lets you place a
certain percentage of your earnings into a tax-deferred
account