Strapped students

摘要

Postgraduate education is a minefield of financial pitfalls - from tuition fees and loans to long stretches without contributing to savings. And yet many graduate students neglect to plan their finances accordingly. The difference between starting a retirement plan in your early 20s versus your early 30s is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This realization hit me like a ton of bricks when I attended a seminar at my husband's workplace. At 28,I had long missed my opportunity to take full advantage of compound interest. Like many graduate students, I had spent my early 20s focusing on day-to-day financial challenges rather than on the big picture.