Finding money advice on campus -- Page 2

Other schools chuck anything that might induce you to sign up for another piece of plastic. At Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pa., the mail room receives "trays and trays of mail" from credit card providers, says Greg Stanson, vice president for enrollment and student services. But much of it gets dumped before it ever hits student mailboxes. "We do not deliver bulk mail that isn't addressed to a specific student, and during the summer we do not forward any mail that isn't sent via first-class postage."

Debt counseling
If you're financing your education with federal loans, you can usually count on getting a healthy dose of debt counseling at the start of your college career, then again at the end.

Some schools go further. At the School of Professional Studies in Business and Education at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., financial aid officers want to see you when you're about to get in over your head.

Because the school caters to older, nontraditional learners, many with families, some students take out heavy-duty loans to cover living expenses. But when a student hits the national average debt load for his course of study -- $17,000 for an undergraduate, $48,000 for a business school student -- he's required to get some debt counseling.

Financial aid advisers scare big-time borrowers straight with info on the bite that debt repayment will take out of their paycheck after they graduate. They also offer personal advice on financing an education, scoring little-known scholarships, finding an on-campus jobs that offers tuition remission, and paying interest on student loans while a collegian is still in school.

The result: Students tend to scale back on their loans. "Our default rate is about 1 percent at Hopkins," says Laura Donnelly, director of financial aid for the School of Professional Studies. "Banks would kill to have such a low default rate."

Tax assistance
If you actually know what a 1040 EZ looks like as an undergraduate, you're probably ahead of the game, but you may still be daunted by the thought of actually filing one. Luckily, many universities can help through the national Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA, program, which provides free tax preparation services for qualifying community members, often with student volunteers.

At Arizona State University in Tempe, for instance, VITA volunteers from the law school provided first-come, first-served help to more than 100 resident students and nearly 1,000 international students last year, says Ming Kang, one of the program's directors. Volunteers know what they're doing, too. The students, often culled from the university's business school or accounting program, are required to pass two online exams through the Internal Revenue Service Web site before they can prepare tax returns through VITA. To locate the nearest VITA site, call 800-829-1040.

Friendly advice
Not every college student is ignorant about money. Take David Carswell, a University of Georgia student who opened his first savings account at age 5 and makes the maximum yearly contribution to his Roth IRA, even as an undergrad. As the student director of UGA's Peer Financial Counseling program, Carswell and others like him want to help you. "The program is set up on the premise that the best way to reach college students is by having fellow students provide valuable information and experiences," Carswell says.

Through the program, trained student volunteers preach the importance of being money-savvy to students in classes, residence halls, clubs and student organizations. Occasionally, volunteers also counsel one on one with peers in need of help. Last fall, a graduate student who had amassed $20,000 in credit card debt came to Carswell for help and left with new ideas on creating a budget, trimming expenses, paying off her credit cards and negotiating new terms with lenders. Carswell even managed to help her start saving for a car.

"After several months, I called the student to follow up. She said she was making significant progress," he says.

The program, which began at University of Georgia in 2001, has since been adopted by nine other campuses.

Melody Warnick is a freelance writer in Iowa.