Students Learn Budgeting at Interactive Reality Fair

In the fall, 150 students from several DeSoto Independent School District campuses attended the Texas Trust Credit Union Reality Fair hosted by NXT Gen and College Driven GEAR UP, two district college access grants.

The fair's purpose was to teach students monthly budgeting practices—with a catch. Upon entry, each student was provided a clipboard with a fictitious scenario that contained an occupation, a child, and varying monthly expenses. Students were free to choose any lifestyle they wanted. The catch was that students had to have money left over at the end of the month.

Dr. Calvin Green, GEAR UP project director, spoke of the student’s wants vs. needs, “When students come in, they always run to the transportation and housing tables first. They want the big house or the nice car, but they always revisit those tables as their last stations because they have a dose of reality. They usually say, ‘I can’t get that nice house - I may have to get an apartment if I want that nice car."