Over the years, a lot of issues have attached themselves to college students. One of these major problems is always running short on money and it is one that seems to be a perpetual struggle for all those who enter university life. As we prepare for life in the real world, college suitably introduces us to the struggle of managing finances. Even though most of our expenses are paid for by our parents, it still becomes a struggle to get through the month with the monthly allowance and there are various possible reasons for this problem.
The first reason has less to do with the habits of students and more to do with the economic status quo and that, a majority of college students come from middle class families who can barely afford the tuition fees. The ones who get into government universities fortunately have a lesser pressure of finances but the ones enrolled in private colleges have parents paying extravagantly large sums for mediocre education. Along with this, the cost of living away from home is massive in itself and a large number of families simply cannot afford the entire sum, leaving students with a small amount of money to get through the month. The cost of food, rent, clothing and books is simply hard to derive from the little pocket money that they get.
However, a major part of the problem is to do with how students are plain bad at managing their expenses. The system of having a budget and following it is not something we stick to and that just leads to money running out before the end of the month. The basic act of calculating how much money is coming in and how much is being spent would help us afford all the necessities and more but spontaneous spending habits prevent this, forming the base for some bigger financial irregularities as independent adults.
Prioritizing expenses is another area where college students fail as they often end up spending recklessly for expensive meals, alcohol, clothes for the sake of following trends, etc. At the end of the day, these are temporary ways of gratification and there’s not enough money left for daily groceries, rent, bills and books.
With the growing consumer culture, students are not entirely to blame as it is also their peer groups and social media which encourage them to spend more in order to “be happy.” However, all of these issues are simple enough to solve assuming that students are guided in the right direction. There are various paid internships on offer for students such as social media marketing and content writing that pay just enough to cover all leisure spending areas. These are not very time consuming and can easily be managed with daily routines. Keeping a budget doesn’t have to be boring as there are various mobile apps which make it fun and easy to keep track of daily expenditure and mark out all areas where they’ve been spending unnecessarily. Struggling with the consumer culture, students can also find ways to make things less expensive for them by finding discount coupons and such, again, through mobile apps. Lastly, there is a need for a conscious understanding that spending money does not have to be the way to be acceptable among friends and it is just as easy to save money and be productive.
