Is the Average College Student Prepared Financially for the Future?

By: Grace Ptak, MacKenzie Cole, Yutong Xie, Kees Noble, Nolan O’Hara, Ben Babson, Ethan Davison, and Ellie Rowel

Boulder, Colorado is notorious for being an expensive area to live, especially for college students. Colorado’s flagship college has been plagued with increasing prices, not only regarding tuition, but for housing opportunities for students, groceries, gas and other expenses. The financial situation for individual college students varies greatly. Some have help from their parents, scholarships, saved money, or financial aid. But no matter the individual situation, students are feeling the stress of saving money and have concerns about their financial security and future.

College students are under a lot of pressure as it is, and financial security can be a major concern for students. Students are balancing their school work, friends and hobbies, meetings, tests, and perhaps jobs. According to the Joint Economic Committee, Colorado households are spending 1.5% more on household goods compared to the national average, 20.7%, due to inflation. This inflationary issue impacts college students in a negative way. Most college students are on shoe-string budgets and the inflation only lessens their opportunities and capabilities. Not only has inflation restricted college students' finances, but almost every other aspect of life has been affected; energy costs, rent costs, food expenses, and transportation costs have risen since 2021.

From our polls, we gain deeper insight into what college students are concerned about regarding finances. We found that most college students' biggest concerns are housing. With rising rent prices, many college students find it difficult to find affordable housing if they can find it at all.

This issue can be partially attributed to Boulder’s small number of property management companies that often price gouge and raise rents. One of the largest property management companies, Four Star Realty, which owns 3,800 units around the Boulder area, has been fined about $1 million for price gouging and taking security deposits away from tenants.

This lawsuit around Four Star led to many articles about the importance of knowing lease agreements before signing. The CU Independent and Student Legal Services detailed the rights of tenants and stressed the importance of knowing the lease’s ins and outs before signing so that these issues are deterred in the future.

With very little options to get housing in Boulder, many students are paying between $1,200-$1,500 a month for rent and some are paying even more. These limited options and aggressive costs of housing leave students under great stress of finding good, affordable housing to continue their educational career.

CU Boulder does offer affordable options for students that are struggling with finances. They offer more affordable housing, food pantries, and financial aid options. While these are promising initiatives for students looking to better themselves through higher education, the visibility of these programs are often overlooked when applying. Even with applying, there is no guarantee you succeed in getting support. Oftentimes students will apply and due to limited housing, their request is unable to be accommodated.

The Buff Pantry at CU Boulder is a food pantry that students can apply to utilize if they need groceries but are unable to afford them. There has been a more consistent amount of visitors to the Buff Pantry, partially due to the rising inflationary costs around grocery stores, but also, from our interviews, graduate students are more likely to take part in the pantry. Since they are more independent than undergraduates, they need to cut more costs to live on their own and finish their education.

Maddie Atuire, the Feed the Stampede Senior Coordinator at CU Boulder, has recognized a concerning rise in the amount of students who need to utilize the university’s food pantry.

“I think that we do see a steady increase in the amount of students that are using the pantry year to year,” Atuire said. “But what changes more is the frequency in which students are visiting the pantry. What we've seen in the past year is that the students that are using the pantry are visiting more often: Instead of visiting every month to every month and a half, they're visiting every two weeks or every week.”

Even with this increase, Atuire notes that many students remain uninformed about the scope of the organization’s available resources, and discusses why some students may be reluctant to seek out these services.

“They'll know that a resource exists, but they won't know the scope of all resources that exist. So, like, students will visit the pantry and that'll be the only thing that they use,” Atuire said. “They don't know that we can also get them connected to Snap benefits. They won't know that we can give them emergency food assistance in times of increased need. They don't know that we can refer them to other community resources or campus departments that could serve them more effectively. So I think that's one problem, is that they don't necessarily get that introduction into all that is available to them during their time as a student.

“I think the second problem is that whether you're aware of our resources or not, there's a heavy stigma associated with utilizing food assistance resources, specifically food pantries,” Atuire continued. “One thing we often hear from students is, ‘Oh, I don't need it,’ or, ‘Other students need it more than me.’”

Hannah Wilks, CU Boulder’s Interim Assistant Dean of Students, oversees the Basic Needs Center and Student Support and Case Management departments, and has also recognized that the stigmas associated with food pantries and basic needs services prevent some students from seeking help out of fear or embarrassment.

“Students standing out in front of a pantry, in front of a lot of their peers, that also might prevent some of them from actually entering or seeking those services out,” Wilks said. “So, there's a little bit of a balance of where you put a resource like [the food pantry]. And space is something that is hard to come by on this campus.”

Wilks is hopeful that as the amount of students seeking out basic needs resources continues to rise, more resources will be directed towards sustaining and growing these services in order to better serve students.

“We'd love to see more funding dedicated to basic needs centers and student support services in general,” Wilks said, “to help increase student success and retention, for especially our historically marginalized students who are disproportionately impacted by basic needs insecurities.”

In addition with basic needs resources on campus, smaller meal swipe packages are available through the CU Boulder website giving students another affordable food option. Having a meal pass also comes in handy for students as there are multiple different places they can go on campus. These include the UMC, C4C, Sewell Market, and more. It is currently $279.54 for 25 meal swipes on CU Boulder’s campus. On average, that would be $11.18 per meal.

The City of Boulder government website provides in depth information around the affordable housing initiatives that have been implemented. There are projections to reach 15% of housing to be permanently fixed at an affordable rate by 2035. While this program is helpful, there needs to be a stronger push for affordable apartments. The data shows that most of this program revolves around multifamily housing, not apartments. While some college students move into multifamily housing later in college, apartments tend to be a primary residence for many CU students.

While there are programs and resources to help alleviate the financial burden on college students, there is still much more that can be done. The programs and places listed above offer crucial support, but often are hard to access or unable to meet the needs of all students. A stronger push for more affordable housing options could help ease the financial stress for many students. More financial support services would also be extremely beneficial for all students. More solutions are needed to make sure that students are not only able to continue their education, but do so without facing an overwhelming amount of financial hardship.