College can be quite a drain on a student’s finances, especially for those with poor money managing habits.

“Students are always short on money,” finance professor Gerry Jensen said. “They don’t think long-term.”

Jensen said students frequently rely on credit cards on which the interest is extremely high.

“It’s fairly common for students to have money problems when they graduate,” finance department chair Richard Dowen said. “Students don’t know how to manage credit card debt.

Dowen warned that students get lulled into the idea that they can roll over their balance on a new card without getting charged. He said that may be true the first time, but the credit card companies will figure out what’s going on eventually.

“As a college student, you’re going to have student loan debt,” Dowen said. “But if you get in any kind of debt where there’s no underlying asset, then you’re going to end up living with it for a very long time.”

Jensen said that it’s a good idea for students to have a checking account and a credit card, if students know how to use them wisely.

“A lot of students just need to go about planning and to set up a cash budget,” Jensen added.

Dowen said students can take courses to help improve their knowledge of money matters. He said the biggest financial decision people make in their lives is when purchasing a house, but most of them don’t understand the difference between a fixed and a variable mortgage rate.

The finance department offers a personal investing course and the family, consumer and nutrition sciences department offers a general education course about consumers’ rights and responsibilities.