I'm here to give you guys some tips on how to keep financially responsible
while you're in college. As a college freshman there are a lot of options for managing your money
responsibly. Talking with your parents can be really helpfulm, it's getting
feedback from someone that has experience
with managing their money. Create a budget
put it on paper just so its easy to tell where the money is coming from
and where it's going. Mistakes may happen along the way but it's just a way to learn for the future.
Another important thing to talk about is who's going to be having access to the
financial information. It's a family decision
to figure out whether your parents have access,
whether a primary caregiver in general will be able to have access.
There also are federal guidelines
that dictate who has access. We're super excited to have you join the ASU family.
For your first year here at ASU, you're going to be looking at the on campus budget.
Research has shown that students who live on campus or with their parents
do much better academically. When looking at these budgets, it is important to
remember that this is an estimate of what your cost of attendance may be
which could vary depending on your major, what meal plan you choose, your residence hall
and various decisions you make based on transportation and personal costs.
it's important to consider what financial resources you're going to have available to you
These resources could include financial aid, parental contributions, or earnings from work.
To pay your bill at ASU there are a couple things you need to know.
First, you should understand that your bill is going to be billed on a semester basis.
However, your financial aid will be rewarded annually.
Make sure you know what resources you have available to you and make sure that you
educate yourself on the FAFSA, without the FAFSA you won't be able to be
awarded any federal funding.
To activate your financial aid, you simply act on your awards on myASU.
It is important to remember that the loans offered to you aren't necessarily how much you are going to need.
Be sure to take out only as much as you need to limit your borrowing.
If you do decide to take out a loan, make sure you activate them early as there might
be additional steps to have them dispersed. Parents, remember that the
parent plus loan is completely dependent on your credit so it might take a little while to
have that one processed. Make sure you pay attention to the tuition due dates
on your myASU.
Students that have financial aid might be given a grace period for this due date but it's
still important to stay on top of the tuition deadlines calendar.
Access to your account is available virtually everywhere.
We even have a myASU app for your phone.
To access your account,
you can go on your myASU and click the finances tab at the top of the page.
There will even be an exclamation mark if there's anything new for you to see.
Here you can pay your bill, see your financial aid for the year or for the semester,
and see if there's anything more that you need to do to get your financial aid rolling.
The last important steps are to sign up for direct deposit and to designate
an authorized payer. Direct deposit will ensure that your funds come to you much faster
than waiting for a check if you're expecting a refund. A lot of students get a checking
account when they go to college,
a lot of those come with bank cards like atm cards or debit cards,
Midfirst actually offers the Pitchfork card which kind of
combines your ASUID with your bank card. A lot of banks have online banking
or mobile banking that you can utilize to help make sure your balance is what you
think it is and you don't overspend! Also credit cards,
a lot of those aren't availabe to ASU students until after they graduate
but for those students to whom they are available, you just have to make sure that you're using them responsibly.
it's really important to pay your ASU bills and bills with other institutions
on time every time.
The best way to build your credit score is just to make sure that your credit
card balances are low and all of your bills get paid time.
It's really really easy to be a victim of identity theft so it's very important to keep your
personal identification information safe.
Someone stealing your identity could very easily ruin your credit score and
it's really hard to recover from that. Your credit report is available to
insurance firms,
businesses, people who are going to rent you an apartment or house.
So it's really really important to keep good credit. ASU is dedicated to ensure your success.
If you have any questions concerns or just need help getting through
your first year, makes you come by the office
or just check the ASU website where we laid out all the answers for you.