Financial Aid

We help you find ways to pay for your education.

Saving and Investing

Banking

Choosing a bank is a major decision, and there is no one right choice for all students. You need to consider location, hours, services, fees and interest rates when you shop for a bank or a credit union. Search for free checking and saving accounts for students and make sure your bank provides a free automatic transfer from checking to saving accounts.

Tips for smart banking in college:

  • Shop around, don’t settle. Research online and visit bank branches to find a bank that meets your needs. Some banks and credit unions offer rewards/discounts for opening accounts or for banking with them.
  • Read the fine print and ask questions. Before signing a bank agreement make sure to read and understand all of the information provided. Ask questions if you are not sure.
  • Beware of cards that make you pay. You should not have to pay to access your money.
  • Track your spending and understand the fees. Using a budget can help you stay on track with your spending. Banks will charge you a fee if your balance goes below zero (overdraft). Avoid these fees by keeping track of what balance you have available at all times.  

Compound Interest

compound interest formula

You can build your financial wealth once you acquire the knowledge of how money grows overtime or the time value of money and the compound interest concepts.  When you invest money that earns a fixed interest rate over a long period of time, you can calculate when your money doubles using the rule of 72.

Simply divide 72 by the annual rate of return you can get a rough estimate of how many years it will take for the initial investment to double. For example, the rule of 72 states that $1 invested at 10% would take 7.2 years ((72/10) = 7.2) to turn into $2.

Emergency Kit

We all have training at one point or another on how to respond to a state of emergency, such as bad weather or environmental threat, but not many of us were trained on how to create a financial emergency kit to save our financial records and personal identity in an emergency.

The kit should include:

  • Birth certificate
  • Social security card
  • Passport
  • Car title
  • Property deed
  • Marriage license
  • Tax documents  
  • Any other financial documents deemed necessary for your identity and financial recordsEstablish your own emergency fund as a student independently from your parents. This saving habit forming will serve you well for the rest of your life as you will always maintain a certain level of financial security.

In addition to establishing an emergency kit, you should also start an emergency fund. Emergency funds should equal between 6-9 months of your personal expenses.

Retirement

It is never too early to start saving for retirement. The first step is to understand your options.

Some common options include:

  • Social security
  • Retirement accounts
    • 401k (employer sponsored)
    • IRA (traditional or roth)
  • Private savings
  • Investments

You can find out more about these retirement options here.

You can use retirement calculators to determine how much you should be saving.