Personal Finance while in College: What to do and what not to do, or how to make a career out of it
At SABEW23 on Friday, April 21, Gail MarksJarvis, longtime personal finance columnist for the Chicago Tribune, lamented how young adults were getting into the stock market. “If it would be fun, people would do it,” MarksJarvis said. “If instead of rolling the roulette wheel, and putting everything on 11, they put money everywhere, they would be better off.” Less than 72 hours later, Bed Bath and Beyond ($BBBY), a popular stock for the retail investor craze started in 2020 and 2021 with Gamestop ($GME), filed for bankruptcy, and reached $0.19 per share at opening, less than half a percent of the value it held at its 52-week high ($30).
Financial education, especially as it relates to college-aged adults investing in the stock market, has always been a hot button issue. However, with many different ways to invest becoming available to retail investors, like Robinhood or Charles Schwab, young adults have never been more exposed to the world of finance. What they do with that is up to them.
One student on this trend is Luke Pittman, a senior at MU from Kansas City, Mo. Pittman said that he started to invest while in grade school, but has started to do so even more while in college. One thing, however, he has always avoided is attempting to play the financial markets. Pittman said the main reason he invests is “long term growth that he can use for a variety of purposes, from education to savings.” He also added that he mostly invests in the S&P 500 and other index funds.
Alex Embree, program manager for the MU Office for Financial Success, says that Pittman started with investing in index funds that track the stock market at large. “Mutual funds, index funds, and exchange traded funds (ETFs) are already diversified ‘baskets’ of assets that include things like stocks and bonds,” Embree said. “Don’t follow the latest trend or get rich quick idea. Do your research on investment securities and tactics.”
Embree also added that “the earlier a person starts, the longer their money can earn interest, compound, and weather the ups and downs of typical economic cycles.”
As college students begin to invest, some become interested to the point of wanting to pursue a career in finance. That’s where groups like the University of Missouri Investment Group, or UMIG for short, come in.
What UMIG does is facilitate opportunities for students to interact with professionals in the world of finance, and learn more about careers in private equity, asset management, investment banking, and more.
Dylan Key, the current president of the University of Missouri Investment Group, is one of the many college students becoming ever more interested in finance. Key, a Junior at MU, said that he is most interested in a career in private equity, but he “could see himself getting into more operational roles.” He also said that UMIG allows students from state schools better opportunities, as “traditionally, state schools like the University of Missouri don’t typically have the opportunity to break into careers on Wall Street, or have careers at firms or big banks.”
Outside of UMIG, which aims to get students involved with careers in financing, MU students also have the option to take a class at the university in Investment Fund Management. This class manages the Mizzou Investment Fund, a $2.3 million portion of the endowment portfolio of MU. The group makes steady gains for this portion of MU’s endowment, and provides education on “research and valuation methods used by professional equity analysts.”
For students not at the University of Missouri, there are plenty of opportunities to learn the markets. Bloomberg for Education and Investopedia offer great courses to help understand the way different markets work.
So while investing and personal finances are major stressors for most college students (the Ohio State University Study on Collegiate Financial Wellness found that 74% of college students agreed that they were stressed out about their personal finances), investing while in college has never been more accessible than it is today. Whether it is making small investments, or pursuing a career in finance, there are many different ways for college students to make their financial lives make just a little more sense.