Course gives students money smarts

     Those who have taken the course were more likely to rank insurance, utilities, mortgage and a college education as must-have items, according to research by the firm Ramsey Solutions. Students who didn't take personal finance were 25 percent more likely to rank television/cable as a necessity. 
     The firm, which surveyed more than 76,000 high school students across the nation for its Students and Money National Research Study, found that of students who had taken the course:

• 86 percent know the difference between credit and debit cards.
• 87 percent understand how to pay income taxes.
• 90 percent know how home, auto and life insurance works.
• 94 percent know how student loans work.
• 79 percent understand what a 401(k) is and how it works. 

     Personal finance students are “more than three times as likely to say they’d rather have $500 in the bank instead of a smartphone,” the report said.
    See the survey here.

GRAD STUDENTS WIN CASE: They grade papers. They do administrative work. They are deeply involved in research. And often, they teach classes. Graduate students are the fuel that keeps universities going.
    This week, the National Labor Relations Board decided that student assistants working at private colleges and universities are statutory employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act. The decision gives graduate students the right to unionize.
    The board is an independent federal agency created to enforce the National Labor Relations Act. The legislation was approved by Congress in 1935 to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining and to curtail private-sector labor and management practices harmful to the welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy, according to the board's website. The act does not prohibit student assistants from coverage.
    A union of graduate students at Columbia University had filed a petition seeking to represent teaching assistants in December 2014.
    The labor board’s decision reverses a 2004 ruling that found graduate assistants were not employees covered by the act. A statement by the board said that the 2004 ruling “deprived an entire category of workers of the protections of the act without a convincing justification.”

     Related:

     Report: Student debt haunts graduates  

     Opinion: Digging out from under a student loan 

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