|
Each day, you are presented with dozens of spending decisions. Will you make healthy choices that support your financial goals? And how do you decide what goals are right for you?
Module Transcript
Welcome to PNC's financial literacy education center, an online learning experience about managing your money.
As a college student, you already know that college can be a demanding experience - from maintaining your grades to making new friends, each day presents its own challenges.
But for many students, college also presents a very real financial challenge. In fact, attending college is the single largest expense most adults will have other than buying a home.
If you receive financial aid, you know that the amount of aid you receive is often determined by factors you can't control, like your parents' income, the cost of your school, and how each school calculates financial need.
But once you arrive on campus, you're in total control of your spending decisions... perhaps for the first time.
Unfortunately, college is often a time when students get into financial trouble - not just from the cost of attending school, but from the same problems that plague all adults: not budgeting, overspending, and the misuse of credit. To make matters worse, college students are often the targets of aggressive credit card marketing, leaving many students with a pile of credit cards and a pile of debt - often in the very first year of school.
Some students think they don't need to learn about managing money because they have so little of it. Nothing could be further from the truth - one of the main dangers you'll face in college is not just spending the money you do have, but spending money you don't, and ending college with thousands of dollars of unnecessary debt, in addition to possible student loans.
This course gives you the facts you need to create and achieve your personal financial goals. Sometimes the right decisions aren't always clear and we certainly can't make your decisions for you. But this course will give you the education you need to make smart choices that are right for you. Along the way, we'll look at some of the factors that shape your financial decisions - from advertising to peer pressure.
In addition to the modules you're about to take, PNC also offers hundreds of pages of aid and money management tips and tools. After each module, you will be given the option to add it to your personalized "My Money" page. Use this feature to get more detailed information on topics of your choice.
There will also be opportunities to write down your financial goals and to practice budgeting with a budget calculator.
We hope you enjoy your course and learn everything you can from PNC's financial literacy education center!
|