STUDENTS' LIFE AND THE CONTEXT OF HIGH INFLATION

STUDENTS and INFLATION

Inflation is a general, continous increase in prices. When it comes, our money will lose real value in the market. It is easy to see this problem in our life recently as we can only buy fewer goods and services with the same amount of money than before. According to some articles, in the first three months of the year 2011, the inflation rate went up to 6.1% whereas the GDP only increased to 5.5%. That means the inflation is becoming high in our country’s economy. In this time, life of many people are not easy at all. Everybody coming from a small village to a big city finds it difficult to live with “the price storm”: the farmers have troubles with their pockets, the workers feel tired with their financial problems and the managers get headache with their business,... How about students at university? Are they affected by the high inflation? Of course, YES. Most of students at university are specially influenced on because they come from and are supported by the farmers or workers or managers’ family, etc and because they cannot earn a lot of money or even cannot earn any money to struggle with the increasing price. That’s why most students are now facing with many difficulties; however, with the same situation-high inflation, some cannot overcome and fail while some can learn many good lessons to be much more successful in life.

Although life of students in the past and the one in the context of high inflation are the same in some cases, they have some changes that cause lots of troubles. One of the similarities of the students in the past and now is getting support from their beloved family because they spend almost of their time to study their major and learn some skills for their future life. Like in the past, students now still spend their supported money for many kinds of fee: school fee, rent-house fee, transportation fee, etc per month. Besides their similarities, students’ life in the past and the one now have much more differences that cause many problems. First, they have to face with many increasing fees while the supported money from their parents are fixed or just a bit much than the one before. In the past, the price of a bus ticket was 3000VND, now it is up to 4000VND so every month they have to pay at least 60.000VND much to go to school  and come back home. According to Students’ newspaper, students also have to deal with the increasing rent-house fee in the high inflation. It is said that an average student has to spend at least 50.000VND higher for their rent-house per month. When the inflation is high, price go up every month, even every week, the price of the food also become a trouble for students. With 50.000 VND, just before Tet holiday 2011, a student could come back home quickly with a lot of vegetables, meat and fish from the market for a whole day whereas they hardly buy nutrimental food for all day with this amount of money now. Hardly buying healthy food with their own money, students also face with health problem. Everything - transportation fee, rent-house fee, the price of the food is going up, students’ study are badly affected  because of getting stress from spending their fixed money for the whole month. That’s why they have to save money to struggle with the “price storm” instead of buying their major materials, their favorite books to enrich their knowledge so they now lose chance to read book, one kind of effective study ways. While students could get some extra outdoor activities to learn some skills for their future life and some extra course like Enlish course to study in the past, they now may cut off them because of lack of  money. With some changes of their life in the increasing price, students’ life nowadays are not very easy at all.

In the context of high inflation, some students cannot overcome the troubles so they are easy to lose their way in life. There are some reasons that students cannot deal with their problem. First, they are familiar with spending money for some activities that waste an extra money per month while everything is increasing. For example, some school-boys wasting their money to go to the pub, dance and drink in the bar instead of saving money for increasing price of many fees, etc. Some school-girls spend their money to go out for shop, for spa, for eat without thinking of the increasing price happening around them. They might be OK in the past but not in the context of high inflation. Spending money for these activities, they find it hard to cover all the increasing fees. That’s why students are easy to fall into debt. Falling into debt means they cannot overcome their problems in the high inflation and then they drop school easily in order to earn money to enjoy their hobbies and pay their debt. Second, some students try to overcome the troubles coming from the high inflation by working part-time. It sounds a good solution but in fact it can make them lose their way in life. When the inflation is bad, jobs is becoming the most effective medicine for the virus-inflation. Therefore, it is hard to find a good part time job. That is the reason why most of them spend a lot of time to work hard without studying and why some of them are forced to do the bad job, or bad behaviour to earn money. Very busy to work, they cannot have a good result in study. Doing bad work, bad behaviour to earn money means that they cannot control themselves in front of money. Consequently, some students really lose their way in life in the context of high inflation because they cannot go through the problem of lack of money.

While some lose their way in life, some can learn many lessons in the context of high inflation. With them, high inflation is the chance  to know how to go through the problems of lack of money by saving money and earning money in the good ways. In the context of high inflation, saving money is the best way that many people, especially students like. In order to save money, they try to manage their money in the pocket by considering which products they should buy, which ones they should not. They find it interesting to ride their bicycle to school instead of using the bus to save a little money and practise their health. And the other way for them to win the high inflation is buying the promotional product from the supermarket to save a little money. Working part time is another choice for students to deal with the increasing price. They can ask the teacher to give them some advices and decide which job is the best to do. My friend is an example for that point, she works as a tuitor three days a week under her teacher's commendation and has enough money to pay for housing fee and buy some books. Others try to study hard to get the scholarship to struggle with high inflation. From some students’ magazine, it is said that many students can get scholarship because of the motivation from the high inflation. That’s true. Some students really want to reduce the burden of finance in their parents’ shoulder so they try to study hard and earn money from their study result. With these good solutions, some students can learn such good lessons that they could not study when the inflation did not come such as saving money, earning money from part time job and from their study. In the future, they may be very successful because of being brave to go through with the trouble like high inflation.

High inflation is causing many problems for students at university. It makes some students’ life harder than ever and makes them easily to lose their bright future. However, the increasing price brings many good lessons for the others who can catch the chance in difficulties. Therefore, high inflation is not really a bad context in students’ life but a good chance when they know trouble is a friend and try to go along with it in the right way, students can be successful with it.