Many college students have very little to no experience in financial planning, which is why University of Pittsburgh Professor of Finance, Jay Sukits, created an event to help students become financially literate.
Gene Natali, Senior Vice President at CS McKee and co-author of The Missing Semester is speaking at the event, Money 101-Taking Control, dedicated to teaching high school and college students about managing their finances.
Natali said, “The title, The Missing Semester, specific to the subject Money 101, some call it financial literacy and April is financial literacy month. This is a subject that impacts every single graduating student be it high school, be it college, and even the dropouts. And candidly, in my opinion, it is the most under-taught subject in America.”
Professor Sukits adds,"Not too many of us get the real basics, especially a personal financial education, early on. So if you don’t establish a foundation then it becomes difficult. I think what you really need to do, it’s so important to educate yourself. It’s important to take control of your financial life” Sukits explained.
“The financial plans that I have students do, essentially plan a 1 year, 3 year, and 5 year horizon.”
When making these plans Sukits mentioned that it is very important that the one year plan is the most detailed of those plans.
“Everybody I seemed to talk to and everything I was reading in the press- especially the fact that college students in Pennsylvania have the third highest student debt of any state in the country- led me to believe that people were getting good jobs, but they were kind of living paycheck to paycheck and not really planning what they were doing,” he said.
The event, “Money 101 - Taking Control” will be at the University of Pittsburgh at The University Club, Ballroom B from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Friday.
