Christina Domenico | Banking on your future

It's that time of year again - spring break, of course - when students flock off campus to more exotic locations around the globe. The one thing they all have in common? They'll all be feeding whatever economy they happen to find themselves in.

Not that that's any different from a normal week at Penn.

Penn seems to have a culture based on regular consumption of discretionary goods - dinner downtown, shopping on Walnut Street, online purchases and even the daily caffeine kick all send our bank accounts closer and closer to the red.

If the University's students disappeared one day, Philadelphia's economy would probably kick the bucket as well.

That's a problem because if you take a step back and look at it, our money is flying out the door before we can even call it ours.

A 2005 Alloy College Explorer Study reported that college students (ages 18-30 and among two-year and four-year schools) spend $41 billion on non-school related goods and services - a 16-percent jump from the year before.

With about 17 million students in America, that turns out to be about $200 in discretionary spending per month per student.

Based on the exuberant spending I've seen at Penn, that figure seems pretty low. Between food, clothes and - what some consider most important - alcohol, $200 per month will barely get you anything, especially when you hear stories about people complaining that $1,000 per month just won't cut it.

Student spending continues to grow faster than typical consumer rates, according to Marketing professor Lisa Bolton. And since we're quickly becoming a more and more attractive segment to marketers, they keep trying to get us to spend more. It seems that they're succeeding.

For students on a real budget from their parents or their own earned money, they have the tool to stretch the limits a little - bursar.

I've only bursared two things since I've been at Penn - textbooks last year when my PennCash balance was too low and a bulkpack from Wharton Reprographics due to the fact that I was unaware that they don't accept credit cards.

And every time I tell the cashier in Houston that I'll pay with cash, the world stops for a split second as I commit the ultimate faux pas.

With the ability to hide precise bursar purchases from going on the record, students can bursar whatever they choose in order to save money for purchases off campus.

One of the first things I heard about bursar as a freshman was that I could bursar an iPod at Computer Connection and it would go recorded as a "Bookstore Purchase" on my Penn bill.

Wharton sophomore Becca Eyerly, frequently uses bursar.

Though she is on a semester budget from her parents, "I try to bursar everything I can, but it is mostly food," she said. "I just keep the extra money in my back account and use it on normal things that I would otherwise be funding myself."

Eyerly uses the extra cash on new clothes, items from CVS and other expenses such as gifts for her sorority little sister - all funded by her parents' cash instead of her own.

At the end of four years, however, many gravy trains stop running, and students are left on their own (for real) to survive, sometimes with credit-card debts from past excursions left to be paid off.

"Forty percent of students have four or more credit cards," Bolton said, "and students sometimes spend a lot to reflect how much credit they have."

When students only pay off the monthly minimum, she added, the debt begins to pile on. Especially in the current economic state, when "interest rates right now are killing people."

With added living expenses such as rent and utilities subtracted from a starting salary, living the high life isn't as easy, or even possible, after graduation.

The solution? Save your money during college instead of eating at one Stephen Starr restaurant a month. It's not worth it if you want to eat at one after graduation.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't enjoy ourselves. But can you really afford that new iPod with your own money, not mom and dad's? Think about it.

Christina Domenico is a College junior from North Wildwood, N.J. Her e-mail is domenico@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Undersized Undergrad appears on Fridays.

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