Students who write for the College Connect blog describe their own experiences handling and managing money and credit. Blog topics include family financial crises, working while going to school, financial aid, managing debt and more.
The blog writers attend Arizona State University, the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
This personal finance blog project is funded by Denver-based National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE).
Spring 2020
Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia
What renters should know before signing the lease
By Jessica Green
For the last two years, Marley Palmer shared an apartment with her brother. Next year, she will be on her own.
College pet ownership affordable through smart decisions
By Henry Fletcher
Paying for a pet while in college seems to be a financial burden that students can ill afford, but Madeline Parry has spent the past year owning a dog and has found that the costs are not as frightening as they may seem. Read more…
Establishing good credit in college
By Alex Merritt
Matt Dunavant has had a credit card since he was a teenager in high school. The fourth-year economics major at the University of Georgia said he only uses it for large expenses, such as paying for housing when he interned in Charlotte, North Carolina, last summer. Read more…
Tax Filing: Tips for intimidated college students
By Adi Miller
Tax season is a little different this year. The filing date was delayed from April 15 to July 15, reflecting the business and personal upheaval associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. For college students, tax filing can be nerve wracking even under normal conditions. Read more…
Turning a hobby into business
By Isabella Luna
Two years ago, a University of Georgia senior only made jewelry for herself and friends. Jessica Hollins, the founder and owner of Jewels by Jessica, turned her hobby into a business, and is now making about $15,000 a year. Read more…
Despite costs study abroad offers new opportunities
By Victoria Swyers
Studying abroad provided Taylor Ogden her first opportunity to ride a plane, train and subway. The University of Georgia senior studied abroad every summer throughout her college career, visiting Scotland, South Africa and Costa Rica. Read more…
Bills and budgets: Tips for financial planning in college
By Savannah Sicurella
When Kat Barker accepted a paid internship in Atlanta last summer, she didn’t expect her first paycheck to arrive so late. Barker, a senior political science major at UGA, said the sudden financial insecurity pushed her into panic-mode, but showed her the importance of budgeting and saving for the future. Read more…
Financial planning in the digit(al) age
By Nele Langhof
Veronica Watts saw firsthand the impact imprudent financial decisions have on a college student’s post-graduation life. Her parents’ failure to save for their own college motivated Watts to go about financial planning differently. Read more…
Students race to find off-campus housing
By Mikaela Cohen
Paige Consoli, a marketing major from Johns Creek, Georgia, said when she transferred to the University of Georgia in January, she was extremely concerned with finding a place to live before the first day of classes. Read more…
Federal Work Study helps students gain equal footing
By Megan Wahn
Autumn Pressley once worked part-time at the University of Georgia Bookstore, a job which required her to sometimes work on football gamedays when the store was overrun by memorabilia-seeking fans. Read more…
Paying off student loans
By Isabel Walston
A whopping 57% of Georgia’s college graduates left school with student loan debt, according to the latest data from The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS). Ashely Wall, a 26-year-old travel nurse based in Los Angeles, graduated in 2015 with a nursing degree from the Medical College of Georgia with $17,000 in debt, a number she called really low. Read more…
Wait, renters insurance covers that?
By Brooke Stocco
Caroline Ahumada, a senior computer science major at the University of Georgia, lives in a rented house, but opted out of buying renters insurance by default. Like many young adults, Ahumada’s knowledge of insurance products is minimal at best. Read more…
Taking out student loans for graduate school may be worth it
By Tyler Wilkins
Hannah Smith knew pursuing graduate education was the right decision, but she didn’t know she’d need to take out loans to supplement her monthly income. Read more…
Students eat more economically, sustainably
By Taylor Morain
University of Georgia students Claudia Miklosik and Avery Lumsden eat food produced more sustainably, but it comes at a cost. Money, time, and access to sustainable products are barriers to eating with a small carbon footprint, they said. Read more…
How to increase your chances of getting an internship
By Skylar Nicholson
An internship provides students with invaluable experience that not only looks good on a resume, but also allows for a glimpse into the work life of your field. The reality is that most entry-level jobs are increasingly requiring applicants to have some degree of experience above and beyond the standard bachelor’s degree. Read more…
Differences in private and federal student loans
By Madison McColl
When Daniel Tolbert left home to attend Mercer University, he soon realized he needed loans to support an independent life. Read more…
Why students should file a FAFSA every year
By Jennifer Conley
Caitlyn Ghiglieri, a junior film major at University of North Georgia, believes every student should file a Free Application for Federal Student Aid each year. Read more…
Make scholarship applications your side hustle
By Charlotte Norsworthy
If you’re like me and most other college students in the United States, you have taken out at least one student loan to help pay for your education. If you’re like me and 70 percent of college graduates, you will graduate with that debt, according to Saving For College, a college planning website. Read more…
Weighing the positives and negatives of unpaid internships
By Caroline Odom
Sachi Shastri planned to intern in Washington, D.C., but she did not plan to make money doing it. Read more…
Scholarship Success: Tips for applying and winning
By Anne Henley Walker
Lowering college costs through scholarships could provide the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Students looking for ways to ease the financial burdens of a college education are increasingly applying for scholarships. Read more…
Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications
Divorce fuels financial intelligence
By Colin Romaglia
I follow an Instagram account called “showerfeelings,” which posts thoughts and ideas. One that appeared this week still has my head spinning about financial technology in today’s society. Read more…
A work-life balance, a family-built budget
By Bree Florence
I began to understand the value of money around the time my parents divorced in 2012. Mom, who had been a homemaker for almost as long as I’d known her, moved from our two-story, suburban house into a 1,300-square-foot apartment paid. Read more…
Saving gives sense of pride and accomplishment
By Kalle Benallie
My relationship with money is based on my mother’s relationship with money. My mother has always been frugal with her money. She’s been working since she was a child, so she’s been handling her money for a while. Read more…
Saving for a rainy day pays off
By Joshua Ortega
While a multitude of ways exist to pay for college, it’s no mystery that budgeting will help you become debt-free. My budgeting journey began with a simple concept that transformed my entire mindset about spending. Read more…
Converting cash to home equity
By Ethan Kispert
One financial event that our family took part in was the purchase of a home in 2013 that taught me how to turn a cash investment into a very valuable asset, especially during a down housing market. Read more…
Learning to budget is a life lesson
By Kimberly Peloquin
When I imagined all of the things I’d learn in college, financial responsibility was not at the top of my list. It fell under the general life skills category, somewhere between doing my own laundry regularly and learning to cook. Read more…
How my family helped build my future
By Erin Brassey
Let’s have a short Brassey Family history lesson. My great grandparents lived a full life and had three wonderful sons. After they passed, my great grandparents left everything to their children. Read more…
Learning responsibility through the art of being broke
By Sara Windom
It makes sense. From an outsider’s perspective it seems impossible I’m broke. I’ve got all the essentials: a meal plan, nearby public transit, a job and a successful Depop account to earn or save money buying or selling used clothing. Read more…
How to cut costs when studying abroad
By Ariella Nardizzi
Studying abroad has been on my radar throughout my college career, so having the opportunity to study in Florence, Italy felt like a dream come true. The program cost, which included tuition, housing, and a few free trips around Italy offered by my program, was actually less than the out-of-state tuition I was paying at school in the U.S. Read more…
Cash-back for college
By Tobias Rein
About a year and a half ago I realized that I needed to pay attention to my finances. Oh yea, that was right about the time I started college. High school was a time of going to Applebee’s and Chipotle whenever I wanted. Read more…
The Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia
COVID wrecked my plans for an entry to the job market
By Hiroaki Kono
I know people in the U.S. often don’t care about being unemployed very much, since many college grads are likely to say, “I need some time off.” However, I am a Japanese citizen. Japanese employers often see a blank period in a resume as a term of “doing nothing and making no efforts.” Being afraid of having that “no status” time, I started my job hunt last November. Read more...
Why COVID-19 might have been a (small) blessing for my finances
By Mimi Wright
A lot has changed since the beginning of my last semester of college. I followed the COVID-19 epidemic in China very closely at the onset of the reporting about what was then a mysterious illness. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that this illness would intrude into every aspect of American lives. Read more…
School obligations mean you need to reduce your campus job hours
By Sierra Downing
I hadn’t thought much about personal finance until about a year ago – I was too busy working and completing classwork. Then I reached the part of my journalism training that required me to work to spend hours at our school-affiliated NBC station, including being an on-air reporter. Read more…
Learning finance through childhood games
By Monica Dunn
My family played a lot of made-up games growing up – my favorite was one I called “Society.” Everyone got a job or two, a certain amount of rocks for currency and an area of the yard to be your “house”. Read more…
What a summer in Boston taught me about cost of living
By Nick Kelly
This August evening in Boston would be the last that my fellow Boston Globe summer interns and I would spend together. So, we decided to head to the North End to enjoy some Italian food to celebrate our hard work. I tried to enjoy the conversation as much as I could without thinking about the end of our time together. For the most part, I succeeded and nothing, I thought, could ruin this bliss. Then the check arrived. Read more…
College fund head start helped me manage my funds
By Austin Weber
Coming to college, I was lucky that my grandparents had set up a college fund for me when I was born. Instead of walking in worrying about money, I had $15,000 in the bank, so I didn’t have a problem early on paying for things. The average that families save, by the way, is about $25,000 in college savings plans, but I go to a state school, so costs are lower. Read more…
The high cost and emotional toll of having a car
By Diana Panuncial
My personal finance journey began my freshman year of college. I was working as a hotel receptionist and also as a barista in the small hotel cafe. I was making $8.50 an hour – pretty great for a job that was literally in my neighborhood. I had my own car, but within the year, it was totaled in an accident. Read more…
Finding a full-time job during COVID-19
By Mariah Cox
Like many recent college graduates, my struggle to navigate post-graduation is amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2019 I graduated with my Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri and decided to extend my schooling for another year to earn my master’s through an accelerated program. Read more…
Investing and growing from your stimulus check
By Perri Stewart
For most of us, being a college student means you rarely see more than three figures in your bank account at any given time. I know this is true because it’s been four years so far and somehow, money never lasts in my account long enough to accumulate. Since COVID-19 broke out and our country was thrown into quarantine, I’ve been looking for ways to make life a little easier. Read more…
I saved instead of losing as a college student during COVID-19
By Tammy Ko
The Covid-19 pandemic has left many college students in terror and devastation. CNBC published this article, “How Coronavirus dramatically changed college for over 14 million students.” As it says in the title, the coronavirus has left millions in a state of terror and confusion. Read more…
Personal finance as a non-traditional student
By Kelly Kullman
As a non-traditional student, navigating my personal finances is a different experience for me than many of my peers. I am 27, so I have been working and supporting myself for a few years while I took time away from college to find my direction. Read more…