Perhaps one of your New Years resolutions is to stay on top of current events in the world of personal finance. NGPF is happy to help, if so, with the return of our weekly Reading List, re-branded as Weekend Reads. The biggest news this week is around the new FAFSA rollout which is going… uh… not so hot… 

Paying for College

• CNBC outlines how the soft launch of the new “simplified” FAFSA is going, how it’s only periodically available for families to complete right now, and what implications the timeline and changes may have on this year’s high school seniors
• The New York Times’s Ron Lieber chronicles his quest to complete the FAFSA for his daughter and compares the experience to trying to get hot concert tickets on Ticketmaster

Why this matters: Many of you teach high school seniors, and this FAFSA rollout will directly impact how soon colleges can offer financial aid packages. 

REGISTER! Ron Lieber is NGPF’s Speaker Series guest this coming week, where he’ll be discussing merit aid (and a bit of FAFSA, too). Attend free, virtually, on Thursday, January 11 at 4pm PT // 7pm Eastern. 

Just Because

• Financial resolutions are second only to New Years health goals as shown in this infographic from WalletHub. Another fun fact from this survey: People said, on average, you’d have to pay them nearly $200,000 to give up their top vice for a year!

Investing

• The University of Kentucky has a novel way to encourage undergrads to start investing – students complete activities such as attending an online budgeting course or uploading a resume to the career center in order to earn dollar amounts deposited directly into their brokerage accounts. The program was tested previously with student athletes and proved so successful they’ve expanded it to the whole student body.

Why this matters: Right now, this is a one-of-a-kind program, but will other colleges follow suit? If so, this could become an important opportunity for your students to be aware of, similar to the company match of a 401(k). Let’s keep eyes on this program!

Buying a House

• Business Insider ran a piece about interest-only mortgages, which are typically only offered to high income borrowers but come with inherent risks regardless

Why this matters: While most of your students wouldn’t qualify for an interest-only mortgage, they may hear about them and think, “Lower payments – how could that be bad???” It’s a great opportunity to reinforce how traditional loans work. You can catch additional resources in the NGPF Buying a House mini-unit. 

About the Author

Jessica Endlich

When I started working at Next Gen Personal Finance, it's as though my undergraduate degree in finance, followed by ten years as an educator in an NYC public high school, suddenly all made sense.