Being Responsible… Financially
As some of you may have noticed last semester, you may receive a financial aid refund check
within the next couple of days. As exciting as this may be, using that money responsibly is very
important. Many of you may see this as the opportunity to go out and buy yourself new toys, like
a TV or that video game that you’ve been wanting. I am not saying I didn’t do those things at all
during my early undergraduate days; that would make me a complete hypocrite. I am here to tell
you to learn from my own personal mistakes. Looking back at it now, I wish I would have taken
that money and SAVED it! You must be adults about this and look into the future. Some of you
may not realize this, but that refund check is borrowed money; you will have to pay it back at the
end of your college career. So instead of spending it now, take that money and put it in a savings
account and let interest build up over the next 4 years. If you do this not only will you have the
money that you put in, you’ll have more because of the interest. This will be VERY nice to have
whenever you have to start paying back the financial aid you took out to pay for college; and in
actuality you will have to pay back less because you actually made money off of that refund
check.
So my challenge to each and every one of you is to try and resist spending that money now, so
that in the future you won’t have to spend more!
My Best,
Scott Lundgren
Graduate Assistant for First Year Experiences