A Full-Credit Course

At two recent workshops at Georgetown, students interrupted to ask, "What is a 401(k), anyway?"

So, professors and other experts sorted through the unfamiliar names and the jargon, explained the types of benefit choices they'll be expected to make, how to figure out what their monthly loan payments and take-home pay will be, and how to invest in their 20s.

It's not difficult stuff. It's just - who has time to think about credit scores and interest rates when there's so much else going on?

Until a car loan or a lease is turned down because of a bad credit score, or late fees pile up.

When O'Brien was a high school senior in Texas, she was offered a full scholarship to another school. But she loved Georgetown; when she visited, someone told her that everyone there has been given many gifts and that they should think about how to give back.

So she didn't pay too much attention to the details of the loans she was taking out. "When I was a freshman, I was like, 'Loans, great! I don't have to pay them back 'til I stop going to school - cool.'"

It's not just tuition (which is a hefty $33,000-plus this year, before housing, books and fees.) In Georgetown, with shops selling $200 jeans and bars mixing $15 cocktails, there are plenty of ways to bleed money within stumbling distance of campus.

O'Brien didn't make any big mistakes; she was careful. She knew she didn't want to drop a couple weeks of paychecks from her on-campus job on a shirt from some little boutique nearby; she'd rather take a bus to shop somewhere cheaper. She's not a big drinker, so she doesn't wake up wondering what happened to her wallet. But she does like ordering music and books online, and she didn't realize how quickly it could add up.

"It wasn't until senior year, when I had to pay my own rent and pay utilities, that I really understood what $60,000 was," she said, referring to her tuition debt.

This year, too, she started setting rules for herself. "I eat lunch on campus once a week and pack my lunch the other days." And she limits her online purchases to $20 a month. She opened a separate account for her rent money so she's not tempted to dip into it.

The classes have already changed her mind-set, she said. She learned about interest rates and credit scores. "I have had a couple of late payments that dinged me. I just thought, 'Oh, one day late, not a big deal.'" But in the class she learned that could cost major benefits. "If you go three years [paying] on time, you could have a 3 percent decrease in the interest rate - which is amazing."

She doesn't regret taking out the loans; she had so many great classes at Georgetown that she kept switching majors, from pre-med to English and so on. "This is the place that made me who I am," she said, "The ideals, the professors, the chaplains, the friends I made."

She's excited to become a chaplain or a grief and crisis counselor at a hospital after graduate school. She knows she won't get paid much, but she's absolutely sure it's what she's meant to do.

"There are some things I look back and wish they were different," she said. She might have taken out smaller loans, with less money for expenses. "I might have had more of a realization that all of that was [racking up] interest and would take a long time to pay back."

Now she has a better idea of how to manage loans and evaluate benefits and salary. The classes reminded her to budget carefully and put money away for retirement when she can.

Then again, she's not sure that had she learned all this earlier it would have changed many of the decisions she made. "Graduation," she said, "was so far away."

SUSAN KINZIE (THE WASHINGTON POST)