Students are now turning to crypto to plug the financial gap that comes with schooling. It is no surprise that the cost of schooling has gone up tremendously over the years. Now more than ever, students are graduating with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. But even the massive loans students have to take out to pay for schooling do not cover everything.
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Things like food, rent, and commute are big issues for students. And by the time their student loans come in, there are sometimes gaps left to be filled by funds from other sources. It has been historically the case for students to take part-time jobs to fill these gaps. But with the pandemic, the part-time job market has been unstable, to say the least. Students are also usually left to rely on parents to plug this gap. But parents’ incomes being affected by the pandemic have driven students to find another way of filling this gap. This is where crypto enters the picture.
Using Crypto To Plug The Gap
The pandemic and school closures left a lot of students with time on their hands as countries went into lockdown. Unable to work and with dwindling savings, a lot of students have had to look towards other means of income to supplement their loans. Loans usually cover about 58% of student expenses, according to this report.
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The survey by Save The Student shows that students are increasingly looking for other ways to make money in order to get by in university. The data shows that the number of students turning to crypto to plug this financial gap has tripled in just one year. The number is up from the 2% who said they were investing in crypto last year to 6% this year.
Getting A Head Start
The survey mostly found that students were generally ill-prepared when it came to finances. So even though more students were investing in crypto, they were not doing their due diligence before investing. This usually leads to mistakes in investing, which in turn leads to money being lost in the market.
Total crypto market cap in the green at $2.29 trillion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap from TradingView.com
Concerns have been raised about students investing due to the hype, “without a full understanding the risks and effective strategies involved in these trades.” This has raised the need for proper financial education and information regarding these trades. In order to make sure that these students are making the best decisions when it comes to investing in crypto.
Featured image from Trality, chart from TradingView.com