personal finance basics

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10 Financial Tips for First-Generation

College Students By

HILARY CORNA Corna Productions, LLC (TX)

NATIONWIDE, ROUGHLY 20 PERCENT of the 7.3 million undergraduates attending four-year public and private colleges and universities are first-generation students (Pappano). Furthermore, about 50 percent of all first- generation college students in the US are low income (Saenz, Hurtado, Barrerra, Wolf and Yeung).

A first-generation college student is defined as one whose parent(s)/legal guardians have not completed a bachelor’s degree at a four-year college or university and are the first in their immediate family to attend a college or university. Being the first person in your family to attend college can be tough.

Students who are the firs t in their families to attend college face a number

of challenges not experienced by many traditional students, including finding

ways to pay for their education. But, with a focused approach and appropriate support

communities, first-generation students can succeed academically - and financially.

As a first-gen college student who was raised in a family of five first-gen college students, I know first-hand the various financial challenges that come with striving to graduate on time with nominal debt. I attended a university where my education cost $120,000 and I walked away with only $7,000 in student loans, all of which I paid off within one year of graduating.

In addition to relying on my own experience to help you negotiate the financial aspects of attending college as a first- generation student, I’ve also reached out to my community of college students on social media to seek their input, which I share with you here. I encourage you to use this article as a worksheet for planning your own financial strategy for college.

Fair warning, though: If you are not committed to doing the work to succeed financially in college, you have no need to read further. The tips I share with you require work.

1. Create a vision for your financial status. Most college students facing financial responsibilities at a

young age spend much of their lives reacting to these challenges instead of being proactive and planning. You must know where you want to be in order to get there.

The first question you must ask is: What is your goal? As an example, is your goal to graduate with $150,000 in student debt? If so, you have no need to read this.

Is it to graduate with $100,000 in debt and pay it off within five years?

Is it to graduate with $5,000 in debt and pay it off within one year? Or, is your goal to graduate debt-free? There are many variations to this question, and as a result,

many different actions a first-generation college student must take based on this goal.

Consider setting a goal that is: • Specific - Ask yourself what, how much, how often, or

where, depending on your particular goal. • Measurable - How will you measure it? • Attainable - Is it achievable? • Realistic - Are the goal and your timeframe to achieve it

realistic? • Time-bound - There is a timeframe within which you

plan to achieve your goal.

This is your starting point: deciding the vision for your financial status. Now that you know how to set one, what is your ideal goal? Write it here:

2. Develop a plan to achieve your vision. Now that you have a goal, how are you going to make it

happen? Let’s work backwards and develop your clear plan for achieving your vision. You have plenty of options! And it starts with understanding the current situation.

Adults who are the first in their family to attend a univer­ sity tend to have more complex financial situations than those whose parents have been to college:

• They are either low-income themselves and must work

multiple jobs or help meet their family’s financial responsi­ bilities; or

• They may not be low-income, but they don’t have the experience and guidance to help manage their finances while in college.

With which one do you relate? Or do you relate with both? Circle which one sounds more like your situation.

3. Create a budget. Now that you understand the current situation, let’s talk

about what you have available. Budgeting 101: Finance is a simple equation of how much you owe vs. how much you have.

What is the actual amount due each semester to the university? Do you know? Enter that figure here:

W hat is the actual amount you have in cash every semester? Enter that figure here:

Do you have a monthly budget? Circle: YES or NO

If you circled NO, it’s time to make a budget. It’s as easy as knowing how much you have vs. knowing how much you owe on a monthly basis. Don’t get overwhelmed by keeping it simple. There are plenty of online tools and apps to help you do this. If it’s your first time, visit the financial aid office or get assistance from a professor on your campus. They want to help and have the exact tools and expertise waiting to be used by you. This leads to my next tip.

4. Visit your financial aid and admissions office. Use what you pay for! You have the right! Tell the office you

are a first-generation college student and are seeking help in how to budget your school expenses. If you call my alma mater’s FAO (financial aid office) and ask the lovely women there if they remember my name, you’re bound to get a resounding, “Of course!” I was there weekly.

In case you are not yet in college but are preparing for it, contact the financial aid office at the school you want to attend and ask for help completing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form. Many first-generation college students fill out the financial aid form themselves. As one college student explained, “They put all these numbers down and expect you to know what each one means. My mother doesn’t know and she expects me to find out and tell her how it all works.”

Please understand that financial circumstances for every student are different. You do not have to go it alone in seeking financial aid and no one is expecting you to. Use this as an opportunity to learn to ask for help, which is a great life skill for the future.

What is the number to your FAO?

When will you visit your FAO?

W hat will you ask them for help with?

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5. Seek out financial aid. During a given college career, averaging four years (if one

graduates on time), the financial aid landscape is likely to change. Government legislation and rates change and new scholarships start. When I was in school, more grants became available so that, over time, I was able to get more financial aid than when I started school two years prior.

While you are working with the financial aid office on your budget and the FAFSA form, ask about specific grants, waivers or aid for which you might qualify. Often, there are even on-campus aid resources depending on your major or on-campus job if you have one, but you may never know about unless you ask.

6. Find scholarships. Consider scholarships to be an investment of your time

with a high return. Pursuing scholarships is a strategic way of acquiring college funding and often have a higher return on investment then an hourly part-time job would have. Further­ more, seeking them offers an intangible benefit: you learn research and essay-writing skills, and you also utilize that time to explore your interests, passions and values via the appli­ cations, which is much more beneficial then waitressing for unhappy customers.

Commit a certain number of hours per week to searching scholarships. You likely don’t want to hear this, but it just takes time. But, the more you research, the more you’ll get. A simple Google search for “college scholarships” will show you over 157 MILLION sites that want to help you pay for college. But you have to do the work.

I received about 20 scholarships during my freshman year of college, each of which came with different requirements and paperwork. Set up a folder for them, organize them separately from your classwork and ensure that you meet all the require­ ments so that you don’t miss your chance to receive them and that you don’t lose them.

Never stop searching for scholarships. I continued to get scholarships all the way through in my senior year. Remember that during four years, much can change and many additional scholarship opportunities may become available.

When will you begin your scholarship search?

How many hours a week will you commit to searching?

7. Seek part-time work. It is common that first-generation college students must

work part-time during school. During my four years of college, I did everything from working at the school’s library to working for an international fitness champion. If you must work during school, be strategic about both the qualitative and quantitative benefits of the job you take. Let’s review the pros and cons of my college jobs as an example:

• S c h o o l l ib r a r y : Poor pay, but it gave me time to do school work. • N a n n y : Excellent pay, but was exhausting and the

evenings took up quality time with friends. • S te a k h o u s e w a i t r e s s : Excellent pay, but it was even more

exhausting, the community of other waitresses was not a good influence and was full of drama, and the evenings took up quality time with friends.

• B a r te n d e r : Even more excellent pay, but the job was still more exhausting (staying up to close a bar until 3 am kills a study day). The community was a terrible influence and, again, the evenings took up quality time with friends.

• P e r s o n a l a s s is t a n t t o a n i n t e r n a t io n a l f i t n e s s c h a m p io n :

Medium pay, but it was not exhausting, and the work didn’t require a lot of thought, so I could focus on studying, and I could do it at home with my friends.

. S t u f f i n g e n v e lo p e s in t h e m a i l r o o m o f a n in s u r a n c e a g e n c y :

Great pay, but was DE-motivating, with no windows and very negative co-workers.

As you see from my vast and self-deprecating experiences, there is no perfect part-time job. Still, you must strive to find one that achieves the following:

• Provides you a reasonable amount of income for your budget.

• Does not take away too much time from your studies and does not make it difficult for you to study once you have the time.

• Provides other benefits, such as access to professors or the dean, free food, etc.

• Does not completely inhibit your ability to have quality relationships and enjoy the environment of the college community.

Your best part-time job will be the one that, based on your vision, is the best combination of these factors.

W hat is your image of your best part-time job?

8. Find a community for support - NOW! Organizations and groups are popping up all over the internet

to support first-gen college students, like www.ImFirst.org, an online community established specifically to celebrate, inspire and organize fellow students. I cannot stress this enough. I hung out with the wrong crowd when I joined college. None of them were first-generation college students and many of them were in sororities or fraternities. There is nothing wrong with these communities. I found they just tended to have different spending habits then mine. I succumbed to peer pressure, spending money on T-shirts, Starbucks and visits to the mall.

When you must be financially frugal, it’s useful to keep yourself around similar people who share your values. If your friends have more flexible budgets, make a concerted effort to propose other ideas for doing things together like being active, studying together or attending free festivals.

Ask your admissions representative if you can be introduced to a current student who is a first-generation graduate. One tends to relate to another better when they come from a similar background. Once you connect, ask them about their mistakes

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and what they would have done differently with their finances if they could go back in time.

9. Maintain healthy relationships w ith your parents. It’s common for first-gen college students to worry about

their families and/or to try to support them. If you are a student who is supporting your family, it’s important to keep your priorities in order and to not jeopardize your education for their sakes. You can work only so many hours and this is one reason your budget will become so handy. Once you figure out what you can afford and find a strategic part-time job, your priorities become easier to fill.

If it’s difficult for your parents to understand your college experience, keep in mind that all they want to do is love you. The best thing you can do is keep in conversation with them, sharing your college experience. Do not ignore them. Share, call, email, or otherwise communicate what is going on with your college life so that they can understand it and how it affects you.

10. Be aware (or beware) of other considerations, including additional costs, student discounts and credit card offers!

Student discounts are everywhere, especially in college towns, so always make sure to ask for them. Similarly, the Student Advantage card and/or a AAA membership can easily pay for themselves with discounts on travel and other purchases.

Be aware that you’ll start getting credit card offers. However, the only cards you should consider accepting are those with no fee that offer cash-back rewards (usually from 1-5%). If you do get one, never carry a balance. Never put more on it than you have in your checking account, and set a reminder for yourself to pay it off twice per month. These are all budgeting tips that you’ll hear from your FAO.

Textbooks are expensive. If you can, borrow your books from friends who have taken the classes in which you enroll. Other­ wise, there are plenty of ways to rent or buy used books, and sell them as soon as you’ve finished the class. The resale value drops quickly, especially if a new edition comes out.

It’s not impossible to succeed financially as a first-generation college student. It’s just more difficult than it might be for others. Stay organized, schedule your responsibilities, find mentors and track everything you spend. And remember that this effort to manage your finances is an investment in your future. You’ll be years wiser than your peers when you graduate.

Bonus: In making any plan, you should identify next steps and

target deadlines for them. What are your next steps after reading this article?

Next steps:

To-Do: By when: 1.________________________________________ 2. __________________________________________________ 3 . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

And finally, three brief tips from the first-gen college community:

@Heatherchelle2010 says, “Pay bills first, fill up your tank next, put money into savings after that. Then [with] what is left, treat [yourself] to one item so you don’t feel constricted in your spending.”

@bigbear045 says, “Scared money doesn’t make money.” @theshowoff22 says, “Don’t spend the refund check.”

References Cushman, K. (2006). First in the Family: Advice about

College from First-Generation Students. Providence, RI: Next Generation Press. Retrieved from http://naca. ws/lOgFTUl

firstgenerationstudent: what it takes to get to and through college. Blog site for first-generation students. Retrieved from http://naca.ws/lMlJLqk

Go College! Now. Creating a college-going culture. Retrieved from http://www.gocollegenow.org/

I’m First. Online community for first-generation college students. Retrieved from http://www.imfirst.org/

Osipova, N.V. (April 9, 2015). First-generation students face unique struggles at elite colleges. PBS Newshour. Retrieved from http://naca.ws/llso2Tz

Pappano, L. (April 8,2015). First-Generation Students Unite. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://naca. ws/21NdizV

Rascon, Y. (Oct. 6, 2014). Life in the Tech Industry as a First- Gen Student. Retrieved from http://naca.ws/lYX9fym

Saenz, V.B., Hurtado, S. Barrerra, D., Wolf, D., and Yeung, F. (2007). First in My Family: A Profile o f First-Generation College Students at Four-Year Institutions Since 1971. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Carolina Firsts. Retrieved from http://firstgeneration.unc.edu/

UWB First in our Families. Digital stories of first-generation faculty and staff. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/firsti- nourfamilies

About the Author Hilary Corna is an a u th o r, b u s in e ssw o m a n , fo u n d e r o f th e # D a re Y o u rs e lf C am pa ign , and sp e a ke r on le a d e rsh ip , d iv e rs ity , and w o m e n ’s e m p o w e rm e n t. F o rm e rly S en io r E xe cu tive O ffice r fo r Toyo ta in Asia , C orna w ro te a m e m o ir a b o u t he r w o rk a b ro a d ca lle d One White Face, and th e b o ok is n o w be ing a d a p te d in to a sc reen p lay . She

is a TED speaker, a sp o ke sp e rso n fo r T oyo ta USA, and a C oca-C o la Scho la r. C orna has been fe a tu re d in The New York Times, Forbes- Woman, and on NBC, and has sp oken to o v e r 3 0 ,0 0 0 s tu d e n ts . She is based in A u s tin , TX. C onn ec t w ith he r a t w w w .H ila ry C o rn a .c o m or @ H ila ryC orna .

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