Students brought face-to-face with 'reality' of life's expenses

By John Howell
Posted 3/28/17

By JOHN HOWELL Christian Woods wasn't even tempted to look at the sunny beaches and cruise opportunities Donovan Travel pictured as part of its display at Toll Gate High School Wednesday morning. Tempted? Well, maybe tempted, but he wasn't going to try

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Students brought face-to-face with 'reality' of life's expenses

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Christian Woods wasn’t even tempted to look at the sunny beaches and cruise opportunities Donovan Travel pictured as part of its display at Toll Gate High School Wednesday morning.

Tempted? Well, maybe tempted, but he wasn’t going to try to fit a vacation into his budget even though the budget was all part of the CU4Reality Financial Education Fair sponsored by Wave Federal Credit Union. This wasn’t for real, even though the fair makes the reality of running a monthly budget an eye opener for students. They’re introduced to such concerns as health care costs, saving for retirement and some costs they may already be bearing like care insurance and cell phone expenses.

And even with all that planning, things could go off the tracks or make for an incredibly good day with a spin on the “wheel of reality.” The wheel gave students a feel for the unexpected such as a costly car repair or the welcome surprise of a gift from a relative.

The morning-long fair opening with comments from State General Treasurer Seth Magaziner. Mayor Scott Avedisian and School Committee vice chairman Eugene Nadeau took students through a monthly budget exercise. Nadeau is a believer in the program, saying it introduces students to what their parents have sheltered them from.

“Families never discuss money with their children. They’re afraid to tell them how much they owe,” said Nadeau in an interview. A banker before he retired, Nadeau said many parents both work to make ends meet and never talk about the sacrifices they make for their kids.

Nadeau is a firm believer in teaching personal finances in high school. That’s just where Laurie Mockler, who teaches personal finances classes at Toll Gate, comes from, too. She has been pushing to make the class a graduation requirement. So far, Mockler said, the district hasn’t found the money to make it happen, but she hasn’t let up.

“They get a little life lesson,” said Wave president Paul Archambault. He feels the fair is importance in helping students the importance of establishing and maintaining good credit. Wave also looks to help out by offering free student check accounts and debit cards. He estimates 100 students have opened Wave accounts.

“We get them started with financing and guide them,” he said. Generally, he’s of the opinion, “that most kids don’t have an idea.”

In preparation to the fair Mockler had her students think about the kind of job they want to do. They then researched the education required to get the job as well as what it pays. Based on what they have found they entered the fair with a preferred occupation, annual salary adjusted to reflect federal and state taxes and FICA Medicare/TDI. They then got to cost out what they can expect to pay for the goods and services they hope to have from participating businesses set up at tables.

Seniors Christian Woods and Eleanor West aren’t the students Nadeau talks about.

Both have jobs and make about $225 a week. They pay for their own phones, cars and food. He is interested in biology and aims to pursue his studies at Rhode Island College. She is interested in dance and choreography and realizes that could be a tough career to pursue financially.

West said the fair made her realize the cost of rent, which was higher than she imagined. Also, she hadn’t thought about laundry and how she gets to use the washer and drier at home. That was a cost she didn’t expect when full on her own.

West thought that maybe half of her classmates rely totally on their parents for financial support and “haven’t really figured it out yet.”

As for adding a vacation into his budget, Christian said, “if I did a vacation I’d be in debt. I’d rather have everything paid off instead of being in debt,” he said. 

Comments

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  • RISchadenfreude

    The next REALITY they need to be taught is what they will be doing with the rest of their lives- this is an important conversation which most parents never have with their kids.

    The "Precious Snowflake" Generation (not to be confused with Hillary's adult Snowflakes) has grown up being told "You can do anything", and colleges are more than happy to get ahold of them for four-plus years, soak the parents and taxpayers, and teach them no useful life skills.

    Students need to know what they want to do for a living, their aptitude for that occupation, how much their education for it will cost, and how much they're going to make (entry-level, not theoretical dollars) when/if they graduate. What we've had for over a generation is students graduating with few useful skills and aptitudes and loads of useless electives.

    I'll always thank my parents for sitting me down annually starting in the tenth grade and inquiring about my future goals and plans, and grounding me in reality. Dreams aren't going to prepare your kids for the real world- don't be surprised when they come back to live with you again because they wasted four years on dreams that had no basis in reality, unable to pay for the everyday costs of life.

    Don't count on school guidance counselors to do this- when I informed my"counselor" (useless Faculty Lounge Potato) that I wasn't going directly to college because I wanted to join the Army to gain experience and get college funding, he closed my folder, got up, and walked out of the room- no follow-up, no post-service enrollment information, no "Good Luck", nothing. The reality was that although my parents would have done it to pay for college, I didn't WANT them to have to re-finance the house...they never even mentioned this, but I knew that was the REALITY.

    I eventually earned 60 credits to qualify for a military school, and recently got an Associates in my field, only because it was a prerequisite for a certification I wanted- I don't feel any regret over missing the "college experience", which has become, by and large, an extension of high school coddling.

    Wednesday, March 29, 2017 Report this

  • Kammy

    RISchadenfreude - Your post seems a bit on the negative side. I haven't encountered the same thing with parents not talking to their kids about the future or students being snowflakes although I am sure there are some of them around. Both my kids graduated from Pilgrim. The counselors and teachers were hands on in helping them find direction. The senior project (which I despised during the year but now see the value in it) was devised to help them look at the world and the future in a different way. It helped give them some hands on tools to put to use when searching and going to college. Both my daughters are in RI colleges now. So are all but 2 of their friends. One went right to work and the other into the Navy.

    This generation of young adults are looking at monumental student loan debt just to go to a regular run-of-the-mill school. An 18 month tech associates degree at New England Tech costs 43K! They are trying to make their way in this world but they are bogged down with ridiculous amounts of debt the likes you or I have ever seen. And yes, they come back to stay with parents because they have to start paying on those loans right away and can't afford rent and payments together.

    But why would we not want them to dream? Why would we not want them to follow the path that they want? I would not call them snowflakes because it takes a great deal of courage to forge ahead knowing that to get to where you want to be you will be paying for it for decades. When kids go to school full time and work nearly 40 hours a week I would rather pat them on the back than call them names. They are working hard to get what they want. No shame in that.

    Thursday, March 30, 2017 Report this

  • DanElliott

    To the seniors, RISchadenfreude, and Kammy, please check out this video from Mike Rowe.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-rowe-gives-grad-advice_us_57597c03e4b0e39a28acb092

    I was soaked by New England Tech, and I never became a computer programmer. It took years of frustration and suffering in this terrible Rhode Island job market before I quit chasing my "dream job" and took the plunge, starting a small business from nothing. I knew what I was already good at, and I applied my skills to a trade I knew something about. Since then, I've made so many friends (my competition) who have helped and guided me as I go forward. Anyone who is graduating high school can do the same thing I did, and you don't need to go to Snowflake University and put yourself $80K in debt to do it.

    Don't put your faith in the "phenomenal cosmic power" of a college degree. Believe in yourself and WORK HARD, and one day you will be successful!

    Dan Elliott

    Greenwood

    Friday, March 31, 2017 Report this

  • RISchadenfreude

    Kammy,

    I'm glad your children had a positive experience with their counselors; counselors are subject to more accountability now. the cost of education skyrocketed when the Federal Government got involved; educational institutions know it isn't their money, so the tuition, fees, books, etc. skyrocketed; there'll be no easy answer to getting costs back under control- they're as addicted to Other People's money as the General Assembly.

    Dan Elliot,

    Kudos to you; in a manner of speaking RI's problem is RI- in the last 15 years, residents have been fleeing RI in droves. On average, about half of the people who load a moving van, U-Haul, etc. LEAVE THE STATE. Talent and skills leave because there are limited job opportunities, high taxes (with nothing to show for it) and the most generous free benefits to new arrivals who don't work on the tax rolls- residents see little or no return on their tax dollars. In 2005, the only State with more people leaving was Louisiana, and they'd just been hit by Katrina (Natural disaster was the only thing more devastating than RI's economy that year).

    I made the decision to leave and left RI knowing that even if my new occupation didn't work out, I had skills to fall back on, my work ethic, a booming job market, high standard of living and lower cost of living, lower taxes, and no State income tax.

    I believe that part of the problem is Rhode Islanders' xenophobia- they tend to believe that it's bad everywhere and many don't bother to research what's beyond their tiny borders.

    Owning your own business is a lot of work- best of luck to you.

    Monday, April 3, 2017 Report this