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CNN Live At Daybreak

College Week: Smart Financing for the College Student; Eating Right

Aired August 29, 2001 - 08:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to go back to Carol and Vince down at the atrium set. Oh, it's Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Kyra.

You know, you went to that expensive private school across town in Los Angeles, USC. I went to the poor public school, UCLA. And we talk about how to pay for these things.

Well, loans and scholarships can pay for tuition, but who's going to pay for other important stuff like books and pizza? Jason Bellini has been talking with students who are learning the hard knocks of econ 101.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHELLEY MCFARLAN, STUDENT, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Before, our kitchen looked horrible. It had like this really, really gross wall paper on it.

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If Martha Stewart's show ever has a college week, Katie and Shelley could host it.

KATIE CARO, STUDENT, EMORY UNIVERSITY: This is not a very nice table. But with a little tablecloth and flower, it becomes this beautiful little centerpiece in our dining room.

BELLINI: It's all about working with what they've got, which as loan-laden college students, isn't all that much.

CARO: We, like, squished a lot of people in this house.

MCFARLAN: We fit six people in one house.

CARO: We put six people in a little house.

This was my first stereo. And then this was an old TV that was in storage in a basement.

BELLINI: They're quickly discovering the little things that add up to big responsibilities.

CARO: We have to send a check to the cable company.

BELLINI: But they feel ready for this, aware of the pitfalls many college students fall into, pitfalls like late bills.

MCFARLAN: Having everybody in charge of one bill, that means that that's their job. And so if that bill is late, then it's their problem.

BELLINI: And money pits like credit cards.

MCFARLAN: I have one credit card. But I am only allowed to use it for emergencies.

BELLINI: Managing money isn't something college students are famous for. Many spend like there's no tomorrow or like there's no such thing as debt and bad credit. They learn lessons the hard way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll offer credit cards really to any student because they qualify.

BELLINI: Pat Robinson mans a table where two Duke freshman declare financial independence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You tell them they can get a credit card, and it's boom, flies off the shelf.

MCFARLAN: It's so easy just to be like, oh, OK, I'll pull out the credit card. And, yes, I don't have cash, but here's my credit card. It's one of those things where you have to be like, do I really need this or not?

BELLINI: It's hard to say no unless you somehow find joy in frugality.

MCFARLAN: Katie, tell him how your duvet cover was.

CARO: My duvet cover was $20 at TJ Maxx.

BELLINI: Or you want to give Martha Stewart a run for her money.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: That's the scene. And behind me, a bunch of students.

And I was just asking them, how many of you guys have credit cards?

Wow. All right.

Let's go to our financial guru, Dave Ramsey.

A majority kids in our audience, Dave, they have their own credit cards or their parents credit cards.

DAVE RAMSEY, "THE FINANCIAL PEACE PLANNER": Well they do, and the sad thing is, when I speak in high schools now I get the same response. About 60-80 percent are already carrying plastic. This little piece of plastic says you're an adult. Wrong. No way. No way. It is a super bad plan to give people who don't have a job yet a credit card. And it's a super bad plan if there are people who don't have a job yet, in college. I remember being there. I know it was a long time ago. But it's not a good thing. Emergencies come up like pizza. Right, no. Do not have a credit card. Do all with cash.

LIN: Charge your pizza. If only parents could charge their kid's college education. We will take some e-mails right now.

A quick question here from Dan Foreman from Shelby Township, Michigan. He says, "I understand there is a Roth-type IRA that can be set up for a child for educational purposes. Can you tell me what the rules are?"

RAMSEY: Well, it's not a Roth IRA. It's called an educational savings account, an ESA. They're nicknamed educational IRAs. This year, you can do $500 per child. Next year, and from then on, you can do $2,000 per year per child. And it grows, and a good mutual fund is what I would suggest, and completely tax free. So it's like the Roth in that regard. And it's only for families that make less than $199,000 a year, married, filing jointly.

CELLINI: We have audience member with a question for you, a student -- go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was going to ask if basically, how would you recommend would be a good way to avoid credit card debt? To just not to get a credit card in the first place or just monitor them carefully?

RAMSEY: Honestly, I do counseling with people who are 30, and 40 and 28 and 26, most of them come into office and say, Dave, this $30,000 in credit card debt. This $50,000 in credit card debt, started when I was in college. So I would tell you as a financial counselor, and that works with people that are busted all the time, just say no. Just go to -- get you some little envelopes, write your categories on them -- food, entertainment, blow money, clothes, whatever.

On your envelope, put cash in that envelope. Pay cash for your stuff. It's an OK way to live. Then you don't get into a mess, and then you don't get into a mess, because the last thing you need to do is have financial pressure while you've got all the studies pressure. We're seeing an inordinate number of people drop out of school to pay their credit card debt, and guess what, then their student loans activate six months later, and they have to start paying on those, and they didn't get the degree.

Fifty-two percent of the people that start college right now do not graduate in America, and a large portion of those today is because they get this debt and then they got to go get a job to pay for it. Just stay away from them.

LIN: Dave, real quick, I'm going to give you the short version of Jennifer Hogan's question. She says, she wants to know how she can get financial aide, because she can't afford to pay herself. She lives with her parents. The government says that her parents make enough money and should be able to help pay, but their in debt.

RAMSEY: Right, that's not unusual at all. There's several things you can do. One is you can check out the Armed Services. The National Guard has an excellent program. And of course you can do a full tour with any Armed Services, and they will pay your whole way, even through a private school. It's a pretty incredible program that a lot of people overlook. The other thing you can do is understand there's about $4 billion in scholarships out there every year. And we had one of our listeners to our radio show call in and say they applied for 1,000 scholarships one summer. They got turned down for 970 of them, but they got 30 of them, and it was $38,000, went to school for free.

LIN: Wow. All right.

Well, Dave Ramsey, there is never enough time to spend with you, I'm so sorry. But we do have a source for folks out there. Get on the Internet, and you can take a money quiz at CNN.com/education. And you can learn if your spending habits will leave you with enough cash for spring break. We have much more ahead here on "College Week." Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: I'm looking at this stuff, and it might look familiar for those of you in college, and those of you heading off to college are probably going to be buying a lot of this stuff to eat, because it's just so easy. Like these pastries and dried noodles.

Well, it's hard to get the good stuff to eat. A lot of people end up gaining weight. It effects your health, as kids go off to college. A lot of parents are worrying, will they eat right?

We're going to go to an expert, Marilu Henner. You know her as the actress, but she's also an author. Her newest book is "Healthy Kids." She is up very early this morning in Los Angeles. Hi, Marilu.

MARILU HENNER, AUTHOR, "HEALTHY KIDS": Oh, I have two little boys. I'm always up early.

LIN: Oh, lucky you. Well, that's half the battle isn't it...

HENNER: Yes, it is.

LIN: ... getting a good start in the morning. Marilu, I'm looking at your chapter here on going away to college.

HENNER: Right.

LIN: You point out something right off the bat that is so critical. These kids are dependent on what they serve in the dorm. Don't have a lot of control over their own diet.

HENNER: I know, that's the problem. You know, when I was in college, which was many years ago, I put on like 25, 30 pounds in college, or right before. And I'm telling you, it is so important to be mindful of what it is that you are eating. Because just by adding the extra two beers and the two pieces of pizza, which is really the culprit here, which is why most kids put on the freshman 15.

They go to college, they're away from home for the first time. They can't believe the food that's available, the freedom that's available. They start drinking, which they shouldn't be, of course, because they're under age. But, just adding the pizza and the beer can put on the freshman 15.

Plus, all the food in the dorm that's like dead food. All the white foods, white flower, white sugar, dairy products which are very heavy. I think what kids should try to do is try to eat fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains and legumes.

LIN: Well, we've got a...

(CROSSTALK)

HENNER: OK.

LIN: But look, I'm holding a bag of carrots here. Where am I going to put this in my dorm room? I'm holding a bag of soybeans, which actually taste pretty good for those of you who don't live in California.

HENNER: Oh, yes, soybeans are great. If I knew then what I know now, I would have had soybeans all the time. I would have had the little cans of tuna. I would have gone sushi nori and taken the salad bar that most dorms have now, and roll up salad inside of a piece of nori. Kids love sushi these days. So years ago, when I was doing it, it was a completely different story.

Plus, another problem is that kids are so used to cramming in food while they're cramming for exams. It's so important to have healthy snacks around you, and to drink a lot of water. Half the time that you're hungry, you're really thirsty. So, you have to pay attention to your intake of water as well.

LIN: But what about if you do go to the cafeteria in the dorm? Can you make a special request? Can you say, a vegetarian entree, and have them make that for you?

HENNER: Something like 48 percent of all college campuses now have vegan entrees as well as a low-fat entree.

LIN: Really?

HENNER: But the problem is that low fat shouldn't mean no fat or fat free, because what ends up happening is, all the factory stuff really is filled with chemicals. You know, flavor adheres to fat, which is why fattening foods are so tasty. The flavor just sticks to it.

So what ends up happening when they make fat free is that they fill it with chemicals and lot of other stuff to add flavor. But it's really not good for you. In fact, a lot of the products that you have there right now are full of chemicals. And what you have to do is, kids, you're reading for exams, you're reading for your tests -- for your books and stuff -- read the labels. Make sure you read the labels.

Anything that has a paragraph this big to describe it or says continued on the next can or can get you 35 points in Scrabble, forget about it. Do not eat it. You are a real person. Eat real food. Frequent a health food store. Make yourself familiar with it. It doesn't take that much money to just add some supplemental things in your college dorm that can be added to what it is that you are being served.

LIN: Right. Right.

HENNER: And, also, what you might the have to do throughout the day is collect food, like from one meal to the next. If there's apples available or some kind of food available at breakfast, take it later on for a snack. Don't be afraid to really use your college dorm for food.

LIN: Start hording them, because this pastry chart that I'm looking at: one pastry, 200 calories. And the chemicals you're talking about, we're not talking about petroleum. But we're talking about preservatives that actually can cause you to gain weight.

HENNER: Right.

I'll tell you something: If you improve the quality of your food, the quantity takes care of itself. We have to retrain our palates. That's our biggest problem in America today with our children.

LIN: Right.

HENNER: Our children's tongues are so assaulted...

LIN: Conditioned.

HENNER: Conditioned to overly salty, overly sugar, overly chemicalized food.

LIN: Exactly.

HENNER: And what we have to do is slowly wean ourselves so that we can except a healthier way of living.

LIN: Thank you so much.

HENNER: It pays off in the long run.

LIN: Marilu Henner, good advice very early in the morning.

HENNER: Oh, it's OK.

LIN: Obviously, you have a lot of energy from eating well. Thanks so much.

HENNER: Thank you.

LIN: Thanks so much -- Vince.

HENNER: And good luck.

CELLINI: Thank you very much.

Well, all good suggestions, although the sushi reference did draw some kind of funny faces here from our college students.

But, nonetheless, Marilu talked about taking care of the body. What about taking care of the mind? You know, going away to college can be very stressful. And here to discuss that aspect is Dr. Judy Kuriansky. She is a clinical psychologist, also a radio and television personality, and somehow found some free time this morning to join us from New York.

Good morning, Dr. Judy.

JUDY KURIANSKY, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Hi, Vince.

Well, indeed, we've been talking about they're taking care of their finances and their body. But kids today are going through what I call the quarter-life crisis. You know, when we're older, we go through the midlife crisis. But the quarter-life crisis hits college kids.

And the frustration that they feel is: What are they going to do with their lives? It's like asking young kids: What are you going to do when you grow up? Well, as soon as they're in college, it's: What are you going to do after you graduate? Worse than ever before because of the pressure financially.

CELLINI: Well, they are being peppered with that question. And you're right. It is very stressful for them. What is the most common form of pressure or stress that you think students deal with, new and students that may be in their junior or senior years?

KURIANSKY: The pressure is: What are you going to do when you finish school?

CELLINI: With your life.

KURIANSKY: And then -- right -- how are you going to make money? Which is the biggest problem that kids suffer from that they didn't years ago -- and so they need to know that's the pressure. And we need to alleviate that from them -- and parents, too, because they're panicked.

Parents deal with the fact that as soon, as they leave school, they don't have enough money to really take care of themselves or to live alone. So they come and they live back at home. That puts stress back on the parents. And so everybody needs to be aware of what this stress is and reduce it. But they also deal with the dating pressures these days.

CELLINI: You know, I was going to bring that up, because earlier this week, we talked about separation anxiety between parent and child. But you're also leaving sometimes, in many cases, a boyfriend or girlfriend back home.

KURIANSKY: Yes, that's very true. And this is a big issue I hear about all the time, because you have kids who are dating somebody else who go to a different school, or sometimes now dating somebody who is still in high school. And sometimes it's the older girl with the younger boy, which is a very interesting new phenomenon.

And they need to know, that, look, we can be in love, but we have to be realistic. A lot of kids today -- and the statistics really support this -- end up going to college to party and have a good time. It's like what I call their last gasp before they have to buckle down and worry about the stock market, even though they are still worried about that in college.

CELLINI: Well, they should just relax and have a good time and put all those crazy, stressful things they think are causing a lot of pressure aside for little while, enjoy the college experience.

KURIANSKY: Well, they also need to know, too, that -- not to escape from some of those pressures, because that's why we have the drugs and alcohol in college. And that's the real serious problem here that leads to partying and to too much sex and to a lot of those extra frustrations, thinking: This is my last gasp. I am going to have a good time and I'm really going to let everything rip.

No thanks.

CELLINI: All right, good points all. Thank you, Dr. Judy Kuriansky, for joining us from New York.

And CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK will continue right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: There you are, the Georgia Tech cheerleaders.

They are true athletes. You know, you see them on the sidelines all the time at football and basketball games, smiles on their faces as they get the crowd to scream their lungs out. What goes on behind the scenes? We'll spend a night at Georgia Tech, and you'll find out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get down to their level.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Five, six, seven, eight. Set, down, step in. Arms -- good. Ready. One, two -- and one two -- -- one two. All together. One, two.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Not an easy day by any means. And standing with me now, along with some other Georgia Tech cheerleaders is Heather McGlinchey.

Heather, the fact of the matter is a lot of people don't think of cheerleaders as athletes, in the same way I think of basketball or football player. What do you say to those people?

HEATHER MCGLINCHEY, GEORGIA TECH CHEERLEADER: I think we deserve to be called athletes. I mean, we're part of the Athletic Association. My freshman year, first year at Tech, we were a full part of the Athletic Association. We have to workout, like all the other athletes. We have a strength trainer. We have workouts three days a week, practice three days a week, and we'll show you stuff that we can do.

LIN: And the thing is, you have to make it look easy, don't you? How much do they weigh, without telling any secrets?

MCGLINCHEY: We like to keep that confidential. Trust me, it's pretty good. We're all pretty strong. We're all very muscular and very in shape.

LIN: Weight training.

MCGLINCHEY: We have weight training three days a week. We have an old NFL player that coaches us for weight training. We do cardio one day a week and weight lifting.

LIN: Can you out-bench press your boyfriend?

MCGLINCHEY: He's pretty strong too. But sometimes, we're pretty competitive.

LIN: Athletic and diplomatic. Thanks so much, Heather McGlinchey. Thanks everybody so much.

MCGLINCHEY: I couldn't do the splits. I never made the squad.

LIN: You know what, I know someone who could do the splits, and she's on our staff.

PHILLIPS: You want to see this picture.

LIN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: All right, Kate Jones was -- she's one of our bookers and producers. Take a look at this picture. Is she a hottie?

LIN: Oh, baby.

PHILLIPS: She was a cheerleader for Northwest Mississippi Community College.

LIN: Smart, talented.

And we always know how Kate is very flexible.

PHILLIPS: Whoa, OK. Speaking about flexible, Vince also a cheerleader -- I mean, a football player. We have a picture of him.

There's Kate.

LIN: Hi, Kate, good job. Thanks so much.

PHILLIPS: She still is beautiful.

And there's Vince. Hi, dad, are you proud of me today?

CELLINI: I think one of two hugs I have gotten from dad over the years back then, both after victories, in fact.

LIN: Number 85. Did they retire that sweatshirt?

CELLINI: No, they didn't. I took that from Nick Buoniconti, a former Dolphin linebacker. That's why I wore that number.

LIN: Weren't you a tight end.

CELLINI: Yes, I was a tight end.

Here's another photo, sideline shot.

PHILLIPS: There you go. Very nice. Well, that's it for reminiscing of our college years.

LIN: Thanks so much, Kyra Phillips, Vince Cellini. I'm Carol Lin.

Thanks so much for joining us this morning on CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK. More "College Week" tomorrow. Stay with us. "CNN LIVE THIS MORNING" up next.

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