Thinking About college?

Just the other day I had asked my father if I could put a fraction of my money in an account that could maybe gain some interest over the years for college or for other needs I may have have later on in life. His response was “huh” and I asked him what does that mean? He told me that interest rates have been at an all time low for a couple of years now because all of the money that should be going towards interest is going into the stock market. The government has done this because now that we have really low interest rates people tend to spend more money. Most of this is for the good and there are many pros for this action but there are also many cons. So how would this affect people in college? The interest rates on student loans will be lower which is a good thing. Interest rates when they are low it discourages people from saving money because their money in the bank isn't doing anything and it's not earning any interest. So people are taking their money out of the bank and putting it in the stock market,and the stock market will flourish because all this money that people would normally have in a bank goes into small companies and  now the companies go out and spend that money creating jobs, doing research and development and also giving raises. The government wants to stimulate the economy because the government doesn't want people to be putting their money in banks when the banks would just sit there and get fat off of all the money going in. They want to reinvest all of the money back into the economy, put it in the stock market and let the companies that you invest in determin how you spend that money rather than the banker. So I’ve researched some new ways yall college folks can save up some money for college. Go to NerdWallet.com and check it out it's totally free! So the first thing you would do would complete a simple Free Application for federal Student Aid (FAFSA). After doing so you would pick the college you would most likely want to go to (the list of colleges are limited btw). Once your done picking your top colleges you can go and visit the college and they may even give you money for just visiting! Crazy right? This web site is almost like a go fund me and you can do the simplest of things just to earn money for college. I've also asked one of our economics teachers about how all of the money going into the stock market affects saving up for college. Mr.Duke, economics teacher at Samuel Clemens said “ A lot of savings accounts and investment accounts are actually tied into the stock market. The better the stock market does the better for 1k’s and the better investment markets do, so if you invest generally you get more money and if you are saving up for college and investing in that then you should have more money for college.” If you are working right now and are planning on attending college you should be thinking about saving 30% of your money a month.

Brooke Schrantz
Staff Writer