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College Finance 102: The Resources Out There

The second installment in a three-part series on College Finance. From podcasts to elaborate books, there is a variety of financial education resources available to assist young students.

“Free your inner financial badass” is the subtitle to the famous podcast Listen Money Matters.
In light of the recent financial literacy crisis among young students, companies and entrepreneurs are coming up with innovative ways to help the incoming workforce get their finances in order. From start-up advice, to daily budgeting, the Internet is host to a multitude of resources.
Within the NYU Abu Dhabi community, the conversation around financial literacy resources has arisen before. In 2016, Rhoshenda Ellis, Class of 2018, discussed her favorite reads that assist in understanding finance and investing. The list includes books on risk management, as well as developing an investment-focused mindset.
These types of lengthy, complex and detailed books aren’t for everyone, but the variety of more modern resources stretches far and wide. Listen Money Matters is a popular choice for millennials and the hosts pride themselves on giving advice to their viewers in a blunt but helpful manner. “The no BS approach to… managing your money effectively,” is the phrase that opens each episode. They focus on a wide range of practical topics from house mortgages to retirement funds.
ChooseFI — Financial Independence — is another extremely popular podcast on personal finance with multiple Facebook groups and forums in which fans discuss ways to optimize their money. The podcast holds a strong following as it goes beyond finance and asks listeners to take a step back to see what makes them happy and where they want to allocate resources. Hosts Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendoza were not happy with their financial lives and decided to come together to make a change, while encouraging other people to do the same. The most recent addition to the platform is a series of articles and podcasts on travelling and getting the best credit card for travel.
NYU also hosts its own internal financial education website to assist students with budgeting, banking, investing and more. NYU iGrad is an interactive platform that includes games and videos to give student specific information such as repaying loans and post graduate financial preparation.
A quick Internet search will show you a myriad of resources, from apps to templates. NYU Abu Dhabi students have explored these options in their quest to become financially savvy. Sebastian Caro, class of 2021 and co-founder of the Wheels start-up, recommended a couple of options to The Gazelle.
“Something that has personally helped me a lot is an application called Fudget. It lets you organize your budgets depending on characteristics, such as food, travel, savings, [and more].”
Caro also emphasized being aware of which banks allow students to easily access their finances through intuitive apps. “If you’re from Europe I would recommend moving your money to a bank like N26 or Monzo, which have an amazing app that lets you manage your accounts and separate your expenses, for Latin America Nubank is also great. They also don’t have management fees. Here in the UAE, ADCB has a student debit account without management fees as well. All of these apps are awesome and have helped me a lot,” added Caro.
Differing priorities aside, knowing how to handle money, credit, loans and budgets is an essential part of life. Whatever your goal in life and your personal preferences, most things will require money in some way. While some of the resources out there might not be tailored exactly to your life plan — such as saving up to buy a house or a car — others such as job planning or investments might be extremely useful.
More formalized and traditional resources include personal finance series from CNN and Harvard. CNN offers a set of free resources called Money Essentials that focus on the essential tools needed for financial independence. Similar to NYU, a respected resource for university students is the Harvard financial literacy resources. The set of resources includes budget templates, tips on saving, investing and several different credit tools.
With financial literature constantly changing, Fatih Haloglu, Class of 2019, encourages students interested in economics and finance to simply stay up to date with the news.
“Read the news. It's the best ways to familiarize yourself with the market and the financial world. The tricky thing about finance is the lingo that's used by people in the industry. The terms and ideas themselves are not hard to grasp but the unfamiliarity and interchangeability of the vocabulary make things complicated,” said Haloglu.
“There are many sources of financial news that are accessible and serve as a great way to get started. I would suggest the Bloomberg app, and signing up for daily newsletters such as Morning Brew to make reading the market news a habit,” added Haloglu.
For those students looking to take things further and keep up with modern financial literature, the Morning Brew, recommended by Haloglu, is a daily financial newsletter targeting rising business professionals or even people wanting to simply take a brief look into the world of investment. The Brew focuses on creating concise information for both the experienced investor and complete novice.
No matter one’s level of financial literacy, there is an abundance of resources to use and understand the multifaceted world of money.
Mari Velasquez-Soler is Deputy Features Editor and Taj Chapman is Features Editor. Email them at feedback@thegazelle.org.
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