Wednesday, February 7, 2001
The University Daily Kansan
Section B·Page 9
9
Education key to saving money
Less spending, learning financial skills helps students with cash
By Joanna Miller Kansan correspondent
Insufficient education about financial planning and investing may leave students low on cash.
Although the University provides students with career services and information, it lacks seminars or programming to help students organize their financial futures.
Ann Eversole, interim dean of students, said students needed training to enhance their awareness of financial issues.
"I think that is an area in the higher education graduate programs that we haven't given enough attention to." she said.
While most University students focus on future careers, many overlook the value of saving and investing. A 1999 study by the American
Savings Education Council showed that only 21 percent of students ages 16 to 22 had taken a personal finance course, and 65 percent of students who were offered courses did not attend.
Of the students polled. ___ two-
thirds said they thought they should know more about money management.
Jennifer Platt, Dyer, Ind., senior, said instead of learning about money in a school setting, she learned from her parents and her work experience.
More information For additional information about investing money. See www.fool.com
"While some of us are lucky enough for our parents to financially back us, there will be a time when that isn't going to be there,"
Platt said. "We need to start making little adjustments now so we are prepared."
"I if hadn't had the experience there, I would be clueless as to how mutual funds, CDs and stocks work," said Platt, who worked part-time in a bank.
"While some of us are lucky enough for our parents to financially back us, there will be a time when that isn't going to be there,"
She said saving was important to her because she wanted the financial security and the capability to cover unexpected costs. "We just can't assume life will always be peaches and cream," she said.
Like many students, Platt said she realized she needed to begin budgeting now in order to prepare herself for financial responsibilities after graduation.
Because few students plan far enough ahead to support their spending habits, preparing and following a budget can be crucial to saving money.
ASEC polling results showed that 40 percent of students were likely
Jennifer Platt Dyer, Ill., senior
to buy a pair of jeans (or something similar) they wanted, even if they did not have the money to pay for it.
Help found on the Internet, an easily accessible resource for most students, might keep students from bud
get glitches of this sort. Aside from parents' advice and hands-on experience with investing, studies showed books and online resources were commonly used and less intimidating for students gathering financial information.
Internet sites, such as The Motley Fool at www.fool.com, focus specifically on providing first-time investors with necessary know-how. The Motley Fool Web site encouraged people who had no financial experience to learn about it because of the benefits of financial knowledge.
As the Motley Fool Web site said, "This stuff isn't rocket science; we all just need to learn together."
Edited by Jason McKee
Students often have trouble balancing bills after school because of a lack of financial education. A 1999 study by the American Savings Education Council showed that only 21 percent of students ages 16 to 22 had taken a personal finance course and 65 percent who were offered courses did not attend them. Photo byMatt Daugherty/KANSAN
Companies lure students with benefits
By Thomas Kolbeck
By Thomas Kolbeck Kansan correspondent
In addition to the standby of medical and dental insurance, companies are coming up with new, and sometimes odd, benefits for employees.
Health club memberships, fully paid tuitions and on-site dry cleaning. Are these the newest parting gifts for Hollywood Squares contestants? Not quite. These are some of the perks aggressive companies are offering in attempt to attract top-notch employees.
According to a survey by CareerPath.com, the perks workers are pleasing for the most include flexible hours, a casual dress code and unlimited Internet access. Employers' newfound attention to employee desires seems to be an attempt to attract the best workers for each company. But is it working?
"It's going to be something that makes or breaks my decision," said Cory Kramer, Overland Park senior, regarding employee benefits.
Kramer, a secondary education major, said benefits would play a crucial role in deciding which school district he would work in. "Anything over and above will entice you to work there." he said.
Yet many school districts in the area seem to be staying away from the "game show" approach.
The Shawnee Mission School District boasts a standard assortment of perks for employees. Dental, health, vision and short-term disability are among the district's benefits. But public schools, seldom known for their abundance of cash, probably will not be able to offer the same options that private businesses can.
DST Systems, Inc., a Kansas City, Mo. based technology firm, offers its workers a vacation package as part of its overall benefits. The company offers a one- to two-week vacation after an employee's first 90 days.
According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average number of vacation days after one year of service is 9.4. DST also offers a plan in which workers can set aside 15 percent of their earnings to buy DST stock at a 15 percent discount. In other areas of the Midwest, companies are pushing even harder to attract talented prospects.
BORN, a Wayzata, Minn.-based consulting firm, gained notoriety in *Fortune* magazine as one of the most attractive companies for prospective employees because of its benefits. BORN offers employees a laptop computer, use of a condo in Florida and a $250 allowance for clothes. Employers hope these perks will get people through the door, and that the benefits will keep workers at their companies after the initial lure has faded.
— Edited by Jacob Roddy
Job cuts threaten optimism behind long economic boom
The Associated Press
It was a letter from the Wisconsin-based company written to 275 workers telling them not to count on many more checks.
Employees of Textron Turf Care and Specialty Products received an unwanted Christmas surprise inside their pay envelopes just before clocking out for the holidays.
"That's when they told us we were closing," said 50-year-old Diana Bendix, who had worked on the assembly for 23 years.
Similar letters have arrived in households across the nation in recent days as a parade of companies marched out plans for tens of thousands of job cuts.
The worry now is about a domino effect — how much growing uncertainty among workers like Bendix
will cut into consumer spending, which in turn could threaten the nation's fragile economic health.
Consumer confidence is the weak link, said Louis Crandall, chief economist with Wrightson Associates LLC in New York. "This is where problems that really could be transitory could turn into a more persistent downturn."
That potential was demonstrated this week in a report showing a steep drop in the Consumer Confidence Index — to its lowest level in four years — largely because of increasing worries about job prospects.
Economists are divided over how much the layoffs will temper consumer confidence. Some say job cuts are a bitter medicine the economy must swallow to get back into robust condition.
"Ultimately, the adjustments
that the economy is making is going to set us up for the next strong period of growth," said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa.
Others contend companies could harm themselves by firing the people who buy their products, potentially damaging the economy in ways not easily rectified with an interest-rate reduction or a tax cut.
"If you think that your job is going down the tubes, how much more likely are you going to be to take out a big loan, even if you're able to do so at very favorable terms?" asked Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank funded partly by labor. "If the rate of layoffs continues to increase, I expect the damage to consumer confidence will be considerable."
In just a few hours last week,
some of the nation's largest employers — Black & Decker, Brunswick, J.C. Penney, Sara Lee and Standard Register — announced they would collectively eliminate nearly 16,000 jobs. That came just days after Lucent Technologies announced 16,000 job cuts. This week, it was DaimlerChrysler saying it will ax 26,000 jobs.
Cutbacks make sense to some workers. At Brunswick's Baylineer Marine boat factory outside Spokane, Wash., employees have glumly noted the unsold boats stacking up in the yard.
"It felt like it was coming," office manager Darlene Scarpelli said of last week's announcement by Brunswick that it will close the factory, which employs 130. She said she would like to remain with the company where she has worked for
eight years, but isn't sure if she wants to move.
"What's making it easier is they are giving a good severance package to employees," she said.
Workers with fewer options may be less understanding. The last time the economy slid from growth to recession, in 1990, the Consumer Confidence Index plummeted as the nation's unemployment rate climbed.
But 1990 was a very different time economically. The government reported a loss of more than 200,000 jobs in July 1990, a hemorrhage that continued for the next 10 months.
There are no problems of that magnitude this time around, and the economy is still creating more jobs than are being eliminated.
But economists say what matters is how consumers view the situation. Some suggest that workers have become more used to layoffs than they were a generation ago.
There is a chance that many of the announced job cuts will be less painful than they sound. In a tight labor market, many companies have scores of unfilled jobs that are easy to cut. Many cuts will be spread over years, and some may not happen at all.
But workers and consumers act on emotion, and layoff announcements could lead them to panic. That leaves it to the Federal Reserve, its chairman, Alan Greenspan, and Congress to reassure consumers.
"Rightly or wrongly, people do seem to have confidence in Greenspan's ability to pull the rabbit out of a hat," said economist Paul Kasriel of the Northern Trust Co. in Chicago.
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