Mari Fries, CFP® EA
August 14, 2026
As my spouse and I drive to drop our daughter Zoe off at college, I can’t help but reminisce about my own college drop-off: the trips back and forth to the car as we unloaded my belongings and transformed a small, unfamiliar room into a home.
Some things have stayed the same. But after nearly two decades working in the financial industry, I’m also keenly aware of just how much has changed. Long gone are the days of credit-card tables scattered across the college quad, offering free T-shirts, Frisbees, pizza, and whatever else might convince a college freshman to fill out an application. The proposition was simple: sign here, get a free gift, and walk away with access to money you didn’t have. Of course, at a highly misunderstood cost. For my generation, the financial trap on campus was visible. It was sitting at a folding table.
For today’s college student the financial trap is less obvious and starts much earlier. Zoe is our fourth college drop-off so I am more prepared for the line I will see wrapped around the on-campus bank. When we dropped off my oldest at college years ago, that same line caught me off guard. I questioned my own kid’s preparation wondering what I had missed. I couldn’t figure it out. Then it dawned on me: financial aid doesn’t get deposited into corporately-owned digital transacting applications such as Venmo or Cash App. Financial aid needs somewhere to go – a traditional checking or savings account at a financial institution. Apparently, a surprising number of incoming college students didn’t have one.
The families standing in the on-campus bank line were doing something perfectly responsible: they were helping their young adult “kids” open a bank account. But the fact that so many were doing it for the first time as their kids arrived at college made me stop and think.
The financial hurdle facing today’s college students isn’t necessarily the same one my generation faced. My parents worried about giving an 18-year-old a credit card. Whereas today we need to worry about whether an 18-year-old understands what a bank account actually is. Unlike the credit-card tables of the 1980s, today’s financial trap is much harder to see. Credit card applications come disguised as bank apps without them understanding it’s a different thing.
Habits formed early become defaults. By the end of high school, a corporately owned digital transacting application can feel like a bank. A teenager can receive money, send money, pay friends, request money and even use a debit card associated with the app. They can accomplish this all from their phone without ever having to reach into their pocket. One young adult even referred to these apps as a modern replacement to the “old-fashioned” check. When financial transacting is that convenient, why would you question what it actually is? This is the beginning of their financial trap.
But these similarities don’t make such apps into banks. Most payment apps are technology companies, not banks themselves. Some customer funds may be held at partner banks and may qualify for FDIC insurance under specific conditions, but the app on your kids’ phone is not a bank. This is a distinction many teenagers, and frankly, many adults, may never have been taught to make.
I remember learning how to write a check, balance my checkbook, and read a bank statement in my high school life-skills class. I understood the difference between a checking account and a savings account. I knew that money could sit in a bank account and that a checkbook register was something you should maintain. What my high school skills class didn’t teach particularly well was the financial traps associated with credit-card debt. But at least I had been introduced to the basic architecture of a successful personal financial system on which I could build.
Today’s teenager has a very different financial education. They know how to send $40 instantly, split a restaurant bill six ways, request money from a friend, and even tap their phone to pay. My own kids have become visibly annoyed with some of my decidedly less-than-instant payment methods. They’ve grown up expecting money to move immediately.
While fast money moves aren’t necessarily a bad thing, the problem is when convenience replaces understanding. A young adult can become extremely proficient at moving money without ever learning where the money is actually held, what protections apply to it, or how a traditional banking relationship works. This lack of understanding leads to long-term financial behavior that undermines their financial progress and security.
A quick search at the BBB (Better Business Bureau) website will highlight the many obstacles associated with digital transacting applications, like people getting locked out of their money. Yet, even after learning about the many financial pitfalls associated with digital transacting applications, young adults continue to maintain surprisingly large balances within these corporately-owned digital applications. Post-college, many young adults will continue to use these platforms as their primary transacting and money-holding account despite having since opened an account with a traditional bank. Established behaviors are difficult to change.
Parents used to worry about the credit-card table waiting for their kids on the college quad. Today, parents need to worry about something much less visible: the financial habits our children bring with them to campus. The old danger was giving a young adult too much access to borrowed money. The new danger is raising a generation that is incredibly comfortable transacting money but much less familiar with the ins and outs of managing and securing it.
The solution isn’t to take away the technology. The solution is to help our kids understand it. Before a kid begins transacting digitally, teach them the basics we once considered automatic: what a bank account is, where their money is held, how their money is protected, how to read a statement, how to budget, and why convenience should never replace understanding. Help them open a real checking account and establish a relationship with a financial institution. Make sure they know the difference between a debit card and a credit card. The goal is not to raise kids who can move money quickly. The ideal is to raise kids who know how to manage, protect, and grow their money.