For most of us, someone holds our hands for the majority of our teenage lives. Throughout high school, we’re taught how to apply for college, fill out a FAFSA report and even apply for a student loan. However, as we become older, it seems there are increasingly fewer resources to make the transition from student life into adulthood easy.
You don’t take a college course to learn how to claim dependence, switch health insurance plans, consolidate student loans or invest money. Yet people expect students to know how to do all of these things immediately after their immersion into the professional world.
Although the University of Minnesota does require students to complete an online financial counseling information session if they’ve borrowed from federal or state resources, there’s still a whole lot of information that remains unexplained to us.
I encourage the University to consider creating a short, mandatory online information course similar to its optional one-credit student health courses. After completing this, students would feel more prepared for their adult lives, rather than struggle after being dropped abruptly and left on their own after graduation.
Additionally, the University should do more to advertise the resources that already exist to help students, utilizing social media sites along with email blasts and other forms of advertisement to really get us involved.
If the school is able to promote and improve the services it offers, students will hopefully be better equipped to succeed from the start of adulthood. After all, these resources could save us a whole lot of time and money in the future.
Maddie Eaton welcomes comments at [email protected].
