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Financial Well-being
11th October 2024 • Well-being and YU • York University, Department of Student Counselling, Health and Well-Being (SCHW)
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What do you think of when you think of the word “well-being”? If you fall into the trap of only thinking about mental and physical health, then you should definitely watch this episode that discusses a forgotten aspect of well-being: Financial Well-being. 

Many of us run past the Student Financial Services Department at York University, so we are not reminded of the uncomfortable conversation about managing finances, but why make it uncomfortable? This episode brings to you Karen Warner, the manager of the Scholarships and Bursaries, to the comfort of your seats and hopefully bank statements.   

 

In this episode, Karen informs our host Susu B. of the true meaning of Financial Well-being, offers different perspectives on financial wellness and provides the resources available to help YU achieve financial well-being. The rich conversation I had with Karen had truly changed my perspective on quantifying financial literacy and had certainly made the Student Financial Services (SFS) less scary than it seemed. Finances are friends, not foes!

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Visit our website at go.yorku.ca/wbpodcast!

Transcripts

Susu B.: Hey YU. Welcome to your future favorite podcast if it’s not already Well-being and YU with your host Susu B. This episode, we have breaking news as York University launches its new Well-being strategy. As I was reading over the different types of Well-being included, I was astonished to know that financial Well-being is indeed an aspect of Well-being. If you are a student who may struggle to manage finances on top of juggling through your courses and academic achievements, well, you are not alone. There are things we can do to navigate finances while maintaining our well-being. In this episode, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Karen Warner, the manager of scholarships and bursaries in the student financial services at York. In this interview, Karen taught me that financial well-being is not about how much money you have. It's about having enough to meet your own goals and lifestyle. I really hope you can join us on this journey. A few mindful minutes can really make a difference. So, let's dive into our conversation with Karen.

Karen, how are you doing today?

Karen Warner: I'm great. Thanks for having me, guys.

Susu B.: I'm very excited for today's episode because I just feel like financial well-being is something that's really overlooked. Like, when you talk about wellbeing, think about mental health, physical health, but like, financial well-being is there something really like that, right?

Karen Warner: Absolutely.

Susu B.: Yeah.

Karen Warner: Yeah.

Susu B.: So, before we begin, I just want to know a little bit about yourself. So, can you tell us a little bit about your role in the student financial services?

Karen Warner: Yeah, sure. My name is Karen Warner, and York, has been my life for a long time. I'm a York grad myself, and my daughter came to York. I work at York about 26 years now, largely in student financial services. And right now, my role is, manager in the scholarship and awards portfolio.

Susu B.: That's amazing. So, I think you're the perfect person.

Karen Warner: I've been around for many years. I've seen lots of things.

Susu B.: Wonderful. So, let's just get right into it. So, I spoke about financial well-being. So, in what way would you define an abstract concept such as financial well-being? In other words, what financial aspects do you need to achieve to be considered financially well?

Karen Warner: Right. So, I think this is a very interesting topic. And so, I started to look to see how do they define a financial wellbeing.

Susu B.: Right.

Karen Warner: It's defined as the ability to meet your financial needs and the feeling of financial security and the freedom to make choices because you have that financial security. And I think it's very interesting in the realm of the student life because really, financial well-being and student life do not go hand in hand. Most students are struggling. Most people in our current economy are struggling. And so, you know, anytime that we do surveys with students, one of the things that comes up as their largest stressor is finances and how they're going to be able to manage to pay for school, because we have this belief that families or their parents are helping to support their kids through school, but again, they're struggling themselves. And what I found very interesting, through the work that I've done, is that in many cases, students are actually required to provide for their families. They're required to work, not only pay for their own education and their own personal needs, but they're also contributing to the family. Household puts a significant stress on students, and can make it very challenging. And students think that I'm going to apply for OSAP and that's going to take care of it, but that's not the reality. Right. OSAP is really a supplemental support. Really. Students do need to be working and taking advantage of any other opportunities that are available to them to supplement what they're getting for OSAP, for them to be in a place where they won't even have financial well-being, financial security, but be able to cover their basic needs.

Susu B.: Right. I'm really glad, like, I can kind of connect it with, I'm a psychology major, so I can kind of connect it with the well bwell-being that people usually think of, which is the mental health. When you think of mental health, there's always special cases you need to know, like, the specific condition of that specific person, how to deal with it.

Karen Warner: Right.

Susu B.: Same thing. You can't just assume if you're a dependent student or, like, you live with your family, then, oh, that means they're taking care of you. Maybe it's the other way around.

Karen Warner: Absolutely.

Susu B.: And actually, I'm glad that you mentioned students, because my next question is about how we measure financial wellbeing. so, do you think that financial wellbeing should be quantified? So, for example, as you mentioned many students are trying their best managing financial well-being and finances, but remain in a lower socioeconomic status. Would you consider them financially well for the fact that they're putting in the effort and trying their best to stay in this financial position, or would you quantify it based on the amount of money that they have?

Karen Warner: I think any student who's able to navigate the system such that they're able to pay their tuition and meet their basic skill, living expenses is in a good place because really, for you to have financial well-being, you have to have savings, you have to have a reserve that you can tap into in case something happens. I've seen students with the best laid financial plan. They've mapped it all out. They know what they're going to apply to. They've taken advantage of all the opportunities, and then something unexpected happens that derail it, right? A parent gets sick and is no longer working. They get into a car accident, and they're not able to work anymore. And all of a sudden, all of those plans go right out the window because they just don't have that reserve. And so that, I think, is the biggest challenge for students is that you're struggling to just meet your needs, never mind being able to try to build savings. It's an impossible concept for many students to be able to put money aside and because you're young people and you want to live, and you want to have a social life, too. So, I mean, what do you sacrifice to be able to put money aside? It's really about mindset and, how you approach that. And for many people, you know, we're talking about 17, 18,19-year-olds. They're not in that frame of mind yet, and they're not thinking that far ahead.

Susu B.: Right So, I agree with you. I think, like, it's too complex to think that, like, is it the quantity or quality, because, like, maybe my quality of life is really good because, I don't know, living maybe like paycheck to paycheck, but, like, my quality of life is really good. Meanwhile, someone else has, like, quantity wise more money, right. But they're really stressed out about, like, the savings and stuff. So, I really understand that, like, it's really a complex thing to talk about.

Karen Warner: Yes.

Susu B: But as I mentioned, the students who, like, really try hard and still remain in, like, a lower socioeconomic status, which could be, like, quite frustrating after all. I recall that there are individuals on social media that claim that there might be easy steps to achieving financial wellness. For example, influencers suggesting that, like, this is how you make money, easy. Just come to this online platform, etcetera. From your expertise, do you think such steps could actually make financial well-being achievable?

Karen Warner: I think it's really a combination of both. Like, this generation is very different from my generation. For example, like, when I graduated from university, the dream was to find that stable job that was going to give me a pension and benefits and, you know, be able to live well enough and then hopefully retire and enjoy my life at that point.

Susu B.: Right.

yself and sit at my desk from:

Susu B.: Now, I'm, happy about this answer because, to be honest, I thought a lot of people have, like, really, like, solid opinions on this. Like, absolutely not. That's unrealistic. That's completely a waste of time.

Karen Warner: Yeah.

Susu B.: But I think it is a combination. You could be doing a secure job, and while you're doing that in your free time, you're also working, like, online or, influencing on, something that makes you happy. It's not about, like, oh, making, like, money easy. Not necessarily, but something that makes you happy.

Karen Warner: It's about personal fulfillment.

Susu B.: Exactly.

Karen Warner: yeah.

Susu B.: Like, for me,I don't see myself, being an influencer, but maybe there's something else that's not a nine to five that I could enjoy doing. Might as well do it.

Karen Warner: Absolutely.

Susu B.: Right. So, again, from your expertise, are there. Or do you think there are any realistic steps or formulas to achieving financial well-being that you could maybe advise the students to, like practice?

Karen Warner: Again, I think it's about. It's about mindset, right? Like, I've seen students who come from families who seemingly have the resources to help them, and they actually don't. And then I've seen families who, I'm shocked. Like, their family income is so low.

Susu B.: Like, how do you survive?

Karen Warner: But then they have put aside, like, $25,000 for their kids’ education because for them, that's a priority. And so, they have made sacrifices to be able to do that. Even though they don't have a lot coming in anyways, they've prepared in that way. So, I think it's, again, it's about choices. It's about using the tools that are available to us, the banks and the government of Canada all have of kind of, budgeting tools that they make available to students no matter what type of work you're doing. I saw a commercial and it kind of struck me where it's like this person's holding up a blouse and thinking, do I need this blouse or is this money I could be putting into savings? And I thought, that's very interesting because I have a wardrobe full of things that I'm not wearing.

Susu B.: We all do that.

Karen Warner: I probably would have been a much better financial position if I had made some thoughtful decisions about how I'm spending my money. And so, I think I'm at that stage in my life, but I'm much farther along than you guys. If you guys can get there early, and think about what's a priority to make you happy, where do you want to spend your money? But also thinking about putting that away, what you can, and investing and doing those things to give you that freedom so you can continue to maintain that.

Susu B.: Yeah, it's all about the freedom, because you define financial well-being in the beginning. And I really like the fact that you mentioned freedom. Like, you could be free now, knowing that you're not going to be as free later, or you could be restraining yourself now to be free later. I think that's how we can.

Karen Warner: And there's freedom in the littlest things. Like, I go in the grocery store, and I come up with my card and I'm like, oh, my God, how did I spend $300? And I'm thinking, like, how are people doing this? Right? Like, that, to me is that's financial freeness. Like, to be able to go in and pick up what you want and not think about it. People don't think about that. That's a privilege to be able to do that. And that's kind of what you want to aspire to be at. At some point. Like, everybody should have that feeling that, you know, I have the resources to basically just live well. We all just want to live well, right? Whatever that is for you.

Susu B.: Exactly. No, I love your answer. And, well, so far, we've been talking about how a student can gain some personal skills, like going to banks, going to, like, you know, like your own personal life in managing financial well-being. However, I really wonder if there are supports and resources at York University in particular, that could help a student implement those strategies. So maybe you could tell me a little bit about the resources that are available for the students to use.

Karen Warner: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I, at, York, first and foremost, I would say, you know, students need to be using OSAP. It is the primary source of support for students in the province. At, York, more than half of our student population is receiving aid through OSAP. And I know that, of course, none of you want to graduate and have a ton of debt that you have to worry about. But what students don't realize is that when you apply for OSAP, you're also assessed for grants which are non-repayable, and you can elect to just take the grant portion of the funding. So, hey, if somebody wants to give me $1,000, for free, and I don't have to, to pay it back, I'll take it. Right? So that's the first and foremost. And then, because when we are also assessing anything at the institution in terms of our own scholarships and awards, and it has a financial need component, we're kind of prioritizing those students who have already leveraged, OSAP basically as their first source, because we understand that you've taken advantage of that the government supports, and now you're looking for us to kind of fill the gap for wherever the government support wasn't enough. So last year alone here at York, we gave out about $46 million in funding.

Susu B.: I thought you were going to say thousand. I was like, wow.

Karen Warner: $46 million is what we gave out last year in undergraduate funding through our scholarships, awards and bursaries. And that was to about 18,000 students. So, I mean, we do a lot of outreach, encouraging students to apply. And this year we're actually, excited because we have a new awards platform that's opening this fall. So, the student financial profile will be no more. You will not see any reference to the student financial profile. And the new tool is much more intuitive. It'll automatically, if you go in and you create your profile, it'll automatically auto apply you to certain awards. That's, exclusive news right here. If it's based on your program of study, for example, and your GPA and you meet those criteria, it'll automatically put you into the pool.

Karen Warner: So, yeah, there's going to be a lot of opportunities for students through that. And of course, we have our work study program, too. So, we know from our surveys that many of our students are working to supplement again what they get from OSAP and other resources. We have lots of opportunities here and we love to work with our students. I myself was a work study student, so that's to tell you how long this program has been around. and so there's lots of opportunities for you to get valuable work experience while you're doing your degree that can supplement what you're learning in the classroom. So, in terms of student financial services, those are the three kind of areas that we support. Work study, scholarships and awards and OSAP. But, I mean, in York as a whole, we have many emergency supports for students who do find themselves in those circumstances that they couldn't have planned for. if you find yourself, unable to pay down your balance and you're blocked from enrolling, we have a debt repayment program that you can apply for. And we have a number of, areas, units, our student counseling, health and wellbeing, and our team in student community, Student community relations that all provide support to students. So, if you find yourself in a challenging situation and they take a very holistic approach. So, it's not just about the finances. Certainly, if there's a financial aspect, they'll reach out and they'll partner with us so we can provide that support. But if it's about, you know, talking to your professors or whatever it is, depending on the nature of your emergency, those supports are all there for you.

Susu B.: That's wonderful. I'm very overwhelmed in a happy way. Like, this is great. actually, one of the questions I wanted to ask you, I'm not sure if it's relevant anymore. So you can tell me in terms of, like, the new strategy. What could make me as a student, an attractive candidate for receiving application-based services like scholarships and groceries. But now you're telling me that it's still relevant. It's still relevant.

Karen Warner: I mean, we have a lot of donors funded awards. Donors, seem to have a desire to find students who are engaged in the community or who are leaders in whatever they're doing. And so there are opportunities on the application for you to provide personal statements to speak more about the type of work that you're doing. There's usually a table in the application where you can list the types of extracurricular and volunteer your work that you're doing. Students often miss these things, but if you fill out that statement and give us some details about the type of work you're doing, you're probably going to double your opportunity of getting funding and then there's also an optional section on the application where you can identify by race, you can identify if you're an indigenous learner, for example, if you're a student with a disability. All of these things, again, are just opportunities for us to match you to award opportunities. If you don't complete them, then you're taking yourself out of the running for many awards. So, we encourage you, if you're going to go into the application, to take the time to fill it out as thoroughly as you can. And that will always increase your opportunities and chances of being matched to some type of award.

Susu B.: Perfect, because I thought, with the new strategy that we will not need to, like, apply anymore.

Karen Warner: Yeah, there's a lot of awards that the criteria is very open and it's not specific and then there are others. So, when you go into the new application, it will only again present you with the awards that it has already kind of pretty establish that you meet the criteria for this award. And if there's an additional piece that's needed for that particular award, such as a statement, then you will see that award listed in your portal. So, you can go in and kind of complete the other pieces, but there's many other awards that are more broad that would You would automatically be put into the shortlist for.

Susu B.: I'm just wondering because you said something about, your identity and stuff. So, for example, if I'm a person who is with a disability, I could like, you know, it's a more of something that I could apply for that someone without a disability or not. So, I'm just like, there's something that I want to like, , talk about here, which is what if I identify as a person with a disability, but I don't have the official, like, you know, like the paper that says that I'm a person with disability. Right. How do I navigate that?

Karen Warner: We don't typically ask you to provide proof of your disability. There are some awards that are very specific that you have to be registered with our student accessibility services area, and in having to register with them, you would have had to provide proof of your disability. But in general, we don't ask students to provide us with any of their personal information. I mean, we expect that students are being honest when they're filling out the application. So,that shouldn't be a barrier to students.

Susu B.: Perfect. I'm glad that's the case because, you know, sometimes, like, there are students who are struggling with something or living with something, but they don't have, like, the official.

Karen Warner: Yes, absolutely.

Susu B.: Papers, wherever that. And so now, like, I know throughout this whole interview, I've been combining finances and well-being, as I refer to, like, financial well-being. however, I would like to talk a little bit about each world separately to gain some insight to balancing them both. We kind of, like, touch upon this, especially when you mentioned, like, the student counseling, health and well-being. Like, that's like something that you could, you know, like, use. But in general, like, I feel like there's. There are some people that may focus too much on their financial status, causing them to ignore their well-being. Or, like, the typical understanding of well-being, which is, like, mental health. And, you know, and, like, the same could also happen when they focus too much on their, mental well-being in a way that significantly impacts their financial state. Like, yeah, I'm gonna buy that blouse because I need a treat. So, what is the money making to wellbeing ratio you think is best? and how do we achieve it?

Karen Warner: It's hard to quantify, really. I mean, they're separate but certainly connected. I mean, we see many students. Money doesn't buy you happiness. It really doesn't. There are lots of students who have no financial issues. Doesn't mean they don't have problems. It doesn't mean that they're not unhappy. And again, what I find is that the students who have the least, are actually the students that I have witnessed who are the most giving, the most wanting to give back to their community. And that's been a beautiful thing to see. Like, I think you're struggling yourself, but there's a lot of selflessness in people who have struggled because they. I don't know, there's just something about them. So, I think that, you know, again, they're not in isolation. Of course, we see students who struggling with their mental health. It impacts them financially because they can't work. And again, and the other way, we see students who have no struggles financially, but they also have similar experiences. They're struggling with different things. Yes, being financially secure is nice. It does help to alleviate a lot of pressure and stress, but it's not the end all and be all. I mean, you need to work to sustain yourself in a way that makes you happy, right?

Susu B.: Yeah, that makes absolutely sense. Like, I really like what you said. Like, money doesn't buy you happiness. Like, we need to remember that it's true. I think that's the whole point of, like, of the ratio. Or like I keep saying ratio formula, because when we think of financial stuff, we just think of, like, numbers. And that could be overwhelming for at least, like, speaking for me or like Gen Z. That's just me from Gen Z. I feel like it could be really overwhelming just sitting down and writing things with like, paper and pen. But when you think about it, that the ratio is really like from within.

Karen Warner: Yes.

Susu B.: It just, it becomes easier.

Karen Warner: Basic formula is, you know, you have to spend less than you are making. Yeah, it's a simple math, right? So, you have to work to achieve that. it's not always achievable. Sometimes you're not making enough to do what you need to do. And so, you have to figure out how to balance that. And that means some sometimes sacrifice, right? Like, you have to be sometimes tough about what you can spend your money on. but I think that, you know, there's hope and students should be hopeful that this is not always going to be the reality., the student life, again, I started from the beginning, is not, you know, most students do not have wads of cash. You're going to struggle through university. It's still going to be the best years of your life. Right? so there's lots of opportunities to have wonderful experiences, even if you're not, you know, swimming in cash at the moment. And hopefully, you know, the education that you get will set you up for so that you're in a better position down the line.

Susu B.: You're right. Wonderful. All right, Karen, that concludes our interview. It was amazing, having you today. Thank you so much.

Karen Warner: Thank you for having me.

Susu B.: I really want to thank our special guest today, Karen Warner, the manager of scholarships and bursaries at the student financial services. I really enjoyed our enlightening conversation. Thank you, Karen, for being such a valuable resource. If you are a student at York University, you can connect with the student financial services by visiting the Bennett center for the Student Services or the website at https://students.yorku.ca/ssa-contact . On the website you can find out more about fees, financial aid, scholarships, bursaries and awards, work study positions and finance, financial advising and more. You can also find links to all the services Karen mentioned in the show notes for this episode, along with other valuable information, tips and resources. visit our website at https://students.yorku.ca/counselling/well-being-podcast . Click on the episodes link and look for the episode Financial Wellbeing. This episode was co-produced by the Wellbeing and YU podcast team. Our podcast coordinator is Prabhleen Luthra. Our technical editor is Ethan Muir and I'm your host, Susu B. And as usual, we'll leave you with the quote of the day. Money doesn't buy happiness. Thank you for listening.

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