Venessa at vanessabyers.net posted a good article for college students titled “Money Saving Tips for College” by By Lisa Rogers-Cherry. This is something that I can relate to because I fell into some of those campus credit card traps when I was in school. Financial literacy is an important part of life and your mistakes early on can hurt you in the future. Especially when it comes to the African-American community, we tend to make light of the fact that our credit is bad. We shrug it off, but in reality it means we pay so much more money for the things than those with good credit.

I was watching an episode of Black Enterprises Business Report and they were talking about how African-Americans are more likely to recieve the subprime home loans than any other race. Most of the loans were based on the fact that our credit score was lower or we didn’t have as much for the down payment. Because of lower credit scores, we pay more for anything that needs to be financed. We get tricked into thinking that the companies offering “No Money Down” and “Credit Issues Not A Problem” are looking to help us out. All they want is the money from our higher interest rate!

I guess I’ll get off my soapbox, but check out the article because it has some great advice to keep students out of financial trouble. You don’t have to be a tightwad, but you can make wiser decisions when it comes to your finances. If you are a college student run the other way when they offer you the free t-shirt for signing up for a credit card. Take the steps now to learn how to manage your money now before you get out in the “real world”.