Monday, July 29, 2013

NOT GOING ANYWHERE

NOT GOING ANYWHERE

A few months ago I read an article discussing the cost of state colleges and how if some of the colleges within a system were consolidated that it would save the state money.  For example in North Carolina there is UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte, UNC Pembroke, UNC Wilmington, UNC Greensboro, you get the picture. So instead of all of these Universities under one system the state would close a couple of them and incoming students would have to choose one of the Universities that were left after the cut.  Although this idea is provocative enough, what made me pause was that somehow HBCU’s were added to the conversation.  HBCU stands for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and I personally went to the one and only South Carolina State University.  The reason that I paused when the article mentioned HBCU’s is because these colleges and universities had nothing to do with the concept that the article was speaking of and it just seem like HBCU’s were added just as a suggestion that some of these schools whether they are part of the system or not can be shut down too because they are not needed.  I don’t usually step outside of financial literacy advice and I am not going to in this post either, but this article made me start thinking that HBCU’s and the students that attend them have the opportunity to be taken out of this conversation altogether and it starts with financial literacy.

Why financial literacy?  Majority of HBCU’s don’t have large endowments and they depend on donations from alumni along with other resources, but with alumni comes the issue and also the solution.  HBCU’s mostly consist of African American students who come from lower to upper middle income families.  Usually they are able to attend college through student loans, grants and scholarships (academic and athletic) and without this aid a lot of the students would not be able to afford higher education.  So here is how financial literacy can take HBCU’s out of the “elimination conversation.”
If majority of students at these universities and colleges depend on financial aid then one financial mistake small or large could lead to these students dropping out of college.  A student getting a credit card owing as little as $300 can cause them to drop out of college because they have no way of paying that debt off.  Students can lose a grant and that could lead to dropping out.  I met one student at North Carolina Central that before the fall semester even started she found out that she had lost an $800 grant and she did not know how she was going to get the money so she could start classes the next week.  She asked her mother and her mother could not help because she was struggling herself and just like that here was a student with a bright future at risk of dropping out.  I know that there are a lot of stories just like this one at HBCU’s all around the country and the result is the same. Dropping out.  The student dropping out not only hurts them, but it takes future alumni dollars out of the system making the institution vulnerable.  All universities and colleges must start to educate their students on how to handle money so that students can finish college and attain great paying careers.  HBCU’s much teach students not to spend their refund check, not to get credit cards, and not worry about a credit score because little mistakes like these can lead to a student being financially unstable.


I am sure that there are administrators, professors, student affair professionals, deans and so on who are wondering why should we focus on financial literacy?  Because you can’t afford not to!  The goal of financial literacy is not only to keep retention rates up, but it is truly to benefit the HBCU after the student graduates.  The 2012 college graduate left school with an estimated $26,000 in student loan debt.  This does not include the possibility that the student also had credit card debt or a car loan.  If it is not taught in college that DEBT SUCKS and that once you graduate that you need to pay off ALL debt as fast as you can then you end up with generation after generation that just lives a little bit better than paycheck to paycheck.  Alumni that live like this financially DO NOT AND CAN NOT give back to their alma mater leaving the alma mater to fend for itself.  This may not have been a problem in the past, but with state governments more and more cutting back in the budget when it comes to higher education the dependence on donations from alumni will only become greater.  So as you can see current and future alumni are the issue but they are also the solution, but it starts with financial literacy being stressed to them while they are students.  Trust that not a lot of higher ed institutions are taking on this mission and maybe they don’t have to, but as a HBCU alumni I am here to tell you that you can’t afford not to.  It is time to get off the chopping block and to show the world that you are not going ANYWHERE!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013


Silently Suffering

A couple of weeks ago I attended the NACA (National Association For Campus Activities) Conference in Nashville Tennessee.  NACA is where colleges and universities from all around the country come to one place to hire performances for their campus for the upcoming semester while at the same time attending beneficial educational workshops. The campus representatives who attend are mostly students accompanied by an advisor.  This was my first National NACA so 99% of the students and student affair professionals were meeting me for the first time.  Majority of the performances that are for hire at NACA are music acts, magic acts, comedy, lecturers, etc so what I have to offer is completely different and at first not easy to understand. That is why I wear a t-shirt that says “DEBT SUCKS” on it because that is what I am about, I am about showing students that they don’t have to die in debt like so many people before them. They actually can be different from their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc and get out of debt in a few years after graduation.   I did not start off my speaking career talking to college students but I actually started speaking to individuals who were in the average age range of 40-65yrs and the common sentence spoken at the end of my presentation no matter where I was at was “where were you when I was younger?”  It was said to me so much that I decided I need to go to where the people are younger and that is when I started speaking at colleges.  I went to NACA because it is the best way to get in front of a lot of universities and colleges in one place and when you are able to interact with close to 2500 people in a few days you are able to see a disturbing trend.

Students on a daily basis would walk past me, look at my shirt, and say DEBT does SUCK! Then I would speak to them one on one and quickly come to understand that their financial issues ran extremely deep and that they don’t even know where to start to get a handle of it.  A senior came up to me who was in $30,000 of debt which consisted of student loans, credit cards, and a car loan.  He said “we need you to come to our school, or better yet I just need your personal email because I need help.”  He went on to talk about he didn't know how he would pay off the debt after graduation and to make the situation more serious he had a baby on the way in June.  I met a young woman who wanted after graduation to work directly with young kids at risk and help them towards a more promising future, but she said that she would have to take a job that she didn't want to just to pay off the debt she had.  In her words “I will have to put off my dream for a few years until I can get a handle on my debt.” Another young lady stopped me in mid sentence and said “please don’t remind me of my debt.  I went to a different university before attending this one and racked up so much already.”  As she was speaking tears started to form in her eyes and I quickly told her it would be okay, but she shook her head and said “I don’t think so.”  I tried to help her in the two minutes we had to talk, but I could tell that she needed more and at this type of event that was not possible.

The examples go on and on, but the point of the stories above is that there are A LOT of students that are silently suffering because of debt and they need help, they need direction.  When I was in college which was not long ago no one cared about how much they owed because we all just said we will get to it after graduation, but these students don’t have the same care free option.  With tuition at some universities increasing as much as 40% since 2008 students are feeling the burden of debt before they graduate and to add insult to injury because of the 2008 recession the government has less money to give to universities for grants, etc.  When less money is coming in from the government then who makes up the difference in the money owed? That’s right, the student and their parents.  The good news is some universities are seeing the importance of financial literacy for their students and like the idea of someone who has been in massive debt, got out of it, and now is able to show others how to do the same. After NACA I recognized that I have to do a better job at explaining to Deans, Directors, Advisors, etc the importance of this information because there are students silently suffering and if they don’t go in the right direction they WILL BE graduates silently suffering who will be deep in debt living paycheck to paycheck and not the prosperous alumni that can give back to their alma mater.  My mission is to help as many college students as I can before they graduate so that they are able to live a life without debt.  A life without debt for these students will lead to a world that is changed for the better.