Evan Goldin | Students don't know how to keep their 'bread'

A little less than three weeks ago, hip-hop mania descended on Houston.

Solange Knowles, Monica (think "The Boy is Mine," circa 1998), Madd Hatta and Slim Thug all gathered on stage, a rare meeting of hip-hop heavyweights. Thousands of young fans waited in anticipation, snapping photos with cameras in one hand and cell phones in the other.

Words flew fast as Monica took the microphone:

"Credit cards are one of the biggest forms of trickery when it comes to trying to budget," she said, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. "Really pay attention to what you spend because it feels like you're not spending."

See, while Monica and crew did warm up the audience with their vocal stylings, that wasn't the purpose of the show. The hip-hop stars were there, as part of the Hip-Hop Summit, to empower the audience with financial knowledge.

And who better to give advice on money than those who've made (and spent) boatloads of it.

Bun B, who started the duo UGK in 1987, laid it out plain and simple for the audience as he twirled his chain.

"If you're gonna buy a chain for $30,000, be sure it's not the only $30,000 you have," he said - as USA Today reported - a diamond-encrusted "B" swirling around his fingertips.

I couldn't have said it better myself. While his advice may be obvious, it appears to be news to a lot of you; because from what I can tell, many Penn students don't know jack about managing money.

I surveyed 27 friends and random students (results can be found online)- while I didn't seek out dumb kids to bias the sample, anyone who's my friend may automatically fit that category. Here's what I found:

n Just more than half of the people I surveyed had their own credit card. It's one of the primary ways that a student (at least one without a job) can build a credit history, but also is an easy way to spiral into debt.

n Almost 30 percent of respondents incorrectly thought that the interest earned on savings accounts wasn't taxable.

n Only 30 percent of those I surveyed knew that over the long term, the investments with the highest average return are corporate stocks (not bonds or savings accounts).

It's not a pretty picture.

As Robert Kiyosaki wrote in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, "many of today's youth have credit cards before they leave high school, yet they never had a course in money or how to invest it."

While most Penn students are still under the financial protection of their parents, that won't last for long. And just because students have a parent paying bills doesn't mean they can ignore money management.

This is the time to practice for the real world (if you're not already in it, paying or borrowing your way through school) or start saving up for the sooner-than-you-think car and apartment payments.

But where does one learn this stuff? Well, for starters, it begins with your parents.

Wharton and College sophomore Madeleine Evans got the highest score on my quiz of any student, and she credited her parents with the knowledge.

"It's a result of my parents' planning," she said. "When I turned 18, they sat me down with a financial adviser, and I got a credit card."

Good move. And not surprising that she was one of the few people who knew that if your credit card is stolen, you may be liable to pay up to $50 from your bank, even if reported promptly.

Like Evans, more than 60 percent of the students I surveyed said they learned money-management skills at home; only a quarter learned it at school.

Only 30 percent of students said they had played the "stock-market game" - how I learned about the stock market - in school. And at Penn, the only education on personal finance the University offers outside of theoretical economics classes is a preceptorial.

Little wonder that 37.5 percent of those surveyed said they were somewhat or very confident in their money-management skills.

Pretty meager for a school that prides itself on a practical education. Maybe a financial literacy exit exam is in order. After all, the education system's failing in teaching financial literacy is one of the reasons the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.

For now, though, kids' best shot at avoiding debt may be to take cues from Monica, Belly and the hip-hop crowd. As Slim Thug told the audience at the Hip-Hop Summit, "when you get your bread, you gotta keep your bread."

That's more than a lot of Penn students seem to know.

Evan Goldin is a College senior from Palo Alto, Calif. The Gold Standard appears on alternate Tuesdays. His e-mail address is goldin@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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