Why More Colleges Are Teaching Financial Wellness

Do Gen Z students typically plan ahead like this? They do if they’re in Joy Middaugh’s first-year seminar, “Paying the Game of Life.” Middaugh, a lecturer in international business and management, asks her Dickinson students to imagine and detail their financial futures through a series of four essays that carry them from entry-level jobs into marriage and parenthood. Beyond rent and utilities, the students determine how they’re going to pay off student or car loans, save for their retirement and their kids’ college tuition, and set up insurance policies and protections against identity theft.