Debt education for young adults

[Laura J Sellens]

Caitlin and I met on7/27/10 to start creating the debt talk for young adults.  Here are my notes.

Goal: help young adults achieve personal financial resilience (responsibility).

Contacts at WWU:  Paul Storer, Pam Whalley, Environmental Economics Dept.

Potential ways to get an audience:

-tabling at the orientation fairs.  Lots of people there but they are overwhelmed with info, can easily pass by without engaging.  Also larger time commitment on our part

-speaking in a classroom setting.  Smaller group size, more engagement, more intimate setting to go into depth.   But the talk content is more ‘life skills’ than ‘formal education’ so not very
appropriate, plus professors don’t necessarily have room in curriculum.  (I just remembered giving a guest lecture in
a freshman block course though, so depending on the topics offered that could
be a good fit.  The facilitator had
plenty of leeway in the course schedule)

-collaborating with a student club to hold an event.  Very limited audience, but could go in depth.  Pizza/treats required.

-collaborating with RA’s in freshman dorms.  They have budget for snacks and requirements to hold events, always looking for good ideas.  Students would be able to come downstairs in their P.J.’s and have an
intimate discussion with people they already kind of know and trust.  Small-ish group but we could hold short
talk/discussions in the common room at each dorm that has high #’s of freshman.  We liked this idea the best for this project.

We decided it would be best to have at least an outline of what we wanted to say before approaching any WWU faculty, and then ask for their comments, advice, support, whatever. 
See what interest they have in our project.

Rough outline:

1) Start with video clip setting a personal tone about debt (student goes into debt, has trouble paying it off)

2) Overview of credit situation:  statistics on debt in America, debt legislation, national economic climate

3) Personal impact of financial choices:

                a. Different types for debt (differences between student loans and credit cards)

                b. Go over 3 different credit cards applications.  Read and understand fine print.  Point out how different the
terms can be

                c. Credit rating.  Annualreport.com.  right to get free credit report if refused.

4) Banking local

                a. Explain money doesn’t just sit in your account, it gets used to fund loans, investments (Would you rather fund neighbors or multinationals?). 
Therefore, banking locally is voting with your savings.  You can also vote with your debt by choosing
which institutions hold your loans.

                b.  Whatcom County deposits info, credit unions and banks

                c. Charges to vendors on debit, credit card purchases

                d. impact of X amount of student loan over  20 years, impact of X amout credit card debt

5) Action

                a. refuse debt.  Consider taking less than max amount in student loans

                b. work that summer job

                c. save credit for appropriate uses

                d. move your money to local banks/credit unions.  Move your debt too.

                e. maximize scholarship opportunities (may seem small be every little bit helps)

                f. Enjoy life, freedom, instead of debt burden

Resources (Not too many):         -Your Money or Your Life

 

 

Caitlin agreed to do some research at the library, call Associated Students, look through list of student clubs.

I agreed to start creating a powerpoint, collect citations, and call Dept of Education.

 

I found 3 clips on youtube we might like to use at the talk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct3OsJacTSs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yme11IgGf6A&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQQOXZFP0mM&feature=channel

[Ro Donelson]

This sounds wonderful and so very necessary!!! Supporting your values with how you use (or allow others to use) your money including your debt is quite an empowering concept and one easy to follow through on. There are several shopping guides that rate products and the corporations that produce them including insurance co.s, cell phone co.s, etc. so for some things that aren't local, values can still play a part. They might fit in here too.

If you need back up speakers/presenters for small groups, I would be happy to volunteer. I'm a retired teacher, so this would be a comfortable fit for me.
Thanks
Ro

[Laura J Sellens]

Thanks for your offer and encouragement! If you like we can schedule with you for our next debt talk meeting. If it's handy, please post links to those shopping guides on our discussion titled "resources for a new economy."

[Caitlin Quigley]

Well, it seems like Western beat us to it with a 4 part series of free finance seminars. Laura has suggested that we try to bring this talk to a high school audience. What do y'all think about that? Does anyone have any connections at the high school?