Learn: Build Knowledge and Financial Skills
Understand the basics of budgeting, credit, loans, and everyday money decisions.
Financial confidence comes from learning how money works. This section gives you tools and information to understand core financial topics and apply them to your life as a graduate or professional student.
Explore the following topics to help build your financial knowledge:
CashCourse Modules
- Understanding the Basics of Budgeting: Learn how to calculate take-home pay, balance income and spending, and begin creating a budget.
- Creating and Maintaining a budget: Learn how to track income and expenses, monitor and evaluate your budget, and adjust spending habits to reduce expenses.
- Budget Wizard: Easy to use budget tool to manage your expenses.
Other Learning Resources
- Banzai's Learning to Budget Collection: A collection of short articles, tips, and resources to help you see where your money is going and plan ahead.
- Dave Ramsey's Cash Envelope System: Cash-based budgeting method to help you stick to your budget.
CashCourse Modules
- Understanding Credit: Learn how to determine the cost of various types of credit and which types of credit are better suited for particular purposes.
- Obtaining Credit: Learn how to navigate the credit application process.
- Understanding Credit Reports and Scores: Learn about credit scores and reports and how to dispute errors in credit reports.
Other Learning Resources
- Banzai's Using and Building Credit Collection: A collection of short articles, tips, and resources to help you understand and use credit in a way that supports your financial goals.
- Federal Trade Commission's Guide to Credit Reports: Learn more about credit reports and how to get your free annual credit report.
CashCourse Modules
- Applying for Financial Aid: Learn how to apply for financial aid from government and private sources and evaluate an offer of financial aid.
- Managing Student Loans While in School: Learn how to estimate how much to borrow in student loans and what is affordable based on your future earnings potential.
- Repaying Student Loans: Learn how to prepare for paying back student loans.
Other Learning Resources
- Banzai's Paying Student Loans Collection: A collection of short articles, tips, and resources to help you understand how to pay back student loans effectively.
- Federal Student Aid Loan FAQs: Learn more about subsidized vs. unsubsidized loans, how and when interest accrues, and loan repayment plans.
- Graduate College Funding Tips: Explore funding options, tuition cost estimates, and more.
- Filing Tax Returns as a Graduate Student: Learn how to prepare your tax returns as a graduate student in the United States.
- University of Arizona's Information on Filing Taxes as an International Student
- Banzai's Begin Investing Collection: A collection of short articles, tips, and tools to learn the basics of investing.
- Banzai's Saving for Retirement: A collection of short articles, tips, and tools to learn how to invest and save for retirement.
Why this matters
Understanding the basics of finance helps protect your financial future and supports long-term goals like renting housing, financing transportation, or qualifying for favorable loan terms.