Mershon and Brandon
Part two of the field trip began at New York Pizza Depot. If you missed Part 1, start here.
Deb arranged pizza to be ready for us when we arrived, and Brandon met us for lunch. Brandon (U of M Physics faculty) has met the students on three previous occasions; once on the last field trip to AA, and twice at Tech Club in Detroit this past semester. He caught up with the students while we ate and let them know we would be heading to Angell Hall for a lesson on financial aid.
We walked over to Angell Hall to meet our presenter for part 2, Mershon Dye. She is a friend of Brandon’s that works in the U of M financial aid office. Mershon began with a lesson about creating a monthly budget. She passed out profile sheets giving each student a Job Title, Salary, Marital Status, Family Size, etc. The profile sheet had a running bank account ledger with monthly income already filled in as a credit. The first step was adding in their spouse’s income and subtracting taxes and insurance. Next, they were instructed to decide what else they would be spending the rest of their money on.
There were display boards set up in a big circle all the way around the room. Each board represented an expense that adults typically have to pay for. Things like transportation, clothing, housing, child care, food and entertainment. Each board had monthly costs broken into consumption levels and family size. For example, for clothing, the students could choose frugal, moderate, or elaborate spending levels. Each level then was graduated for the number of people in their families.
David and Henry deciding how much to spend on household items.
After calculating costs for each expense, the students found it was very difficult to make ends meet. They learned about sacrificing wants for needs and how to budget their money.
Once everybody had completed their monthly budget experiment, Mershon began a talk about financial aid and how it works. She told them how financial aid is need based, and that the less you have, the more you can get. She also broke down what it costs to go to U of M on average and how much students typically receive in aid.
Two thirty snuck up fast as the day flew by. It was already time to get the Tech Club back to their bus. The students said their goodbyes to Brandon and Mershon, posed for a few pictures outside in front of the massive columns, and they were on their way.
Left to Right: Brandon, Deb, Malik, Quentin, Royce, Tim, Mr. Smith, DelSham, Cortez, Henry, Ray, Talton, David
Thank you to the faculty at U of M that made this field trip possible! We can only show the students so much in the classroom, and I think they would all agree, taking tech club to Ann Arbor was an awesome experience!
-Bryan
