INTRODUCTION

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my respected teacher Mr. Carl Bloom for giving me the chance to work on such an interesting topic for my term paper. The topic for this term paper was “Student spending habits”. The main purpose of this research was to find out what students actually spend their money on. I wanted to find out whether students are actually spending their money on things which are absolutely necessary or whether they are just wasting their money on unnecessary items. I have tried to reach to my conclusions by taking a survey of 60 students and an interview of a lecturer of Consumer Behavior courses from North South University, Mr. Junaid Khan. Most people think that students nowadays waste more money than students used to 20 or maybe 30 years back. I would like to try to prove them wrong by showing that students nowadays have a lot more expenditure than people used to 20 years back. The average university going students needs at least 100 Taka everyday. This might sound like a very large amount because 100 Taka everyday means that he/she is spends 3000 Taka a month just going to and from university. However, if we look closer and try to find out why so much money is required we can see that the average student needs around 80 Taka just to travel to and from university and home. If the student doesn’t get transport from his house then a major portion of his expenditure consists of traveling. Besides transport there are also other expenses which are simply inevitable, which might not have been there in the past.

BACKGROUND

The lifestyle difference in students amongst different nations are another factor to be considered in terms of expenditure. There is much difference between the lifestyles of Western nations’ students and the ones of the Eastern accustoms. In western nations many students leave home to attend University in locations they like to or Institutes that better suit their fields of interest whereas in Bangladesh most students decide to go to a local university to further enhance their education. Hence there is not much a need for dorms, on-campus living, living away from home, and necessary students funding provided. This is a major cut-down for students as living away from home adds further finances to be considered in spending. In Bangladesh students are mainly backed financially by their parents till their graduation. So they have the liberty of spending whatever money they get besides their tuition fees in anyway they wish. They don’t have to worry about expenditures such as washing powders, soaps and so on, since these are already available at home. However, in western countries students who live in dorms or away from homes in different universities have to bear these thoughts in their mind.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Unfortunately I was unable to get any secondary sources regarding students’ spending habits in context of Bangladesh. However, I gathered some information regarding students’ spending habits in the United States of America. With this information I have tried to show a comparison between students of Bangladesh and students in the USA. For my secondary source of date I was able to gather a publication by the Indiana University, USA. The data provided in that publication showed that students of that university spent their money on food at least 1-3 times a week and when they did 68% of it was on fast food or pizza. Once or twice a month they went out to movies or got a rental. Another result showed that students almost never spent their money on hardware, jewelry or electronics. In Bangladesh we have similar expenditure patterns, however, students don’t spend their money on rentals or movie theaters, they spend it on CD’s and DVD’s. One important difference which can be pointed out between American and Bangladeshi students is that, American students spend their money at bars and pubs. The survey results from the Indiana University show that 30.7% of the students go to bars at least 1-3 times a week. In Bangladesh since alcohol is a banned item students don’t spend their money at bars or pubs. The Indiana University survey was done to analyze the potential market that students could create. That is why all the information available in their publication was not relevant to my research paper. Due to time constrains my research was a lot more limited.

PRIMARY SOURCES

For my primary sources I took a survey of 60 students from North South University and I also took an interview of a lecturer on consumer behavior from the same university. For my survey I distributed questionnaires. There were 12 questions in my questionnaire (samples are given at the back). Through my questions I gathered the following information: ❑ What are students sources of money ❑ How much money do they get a month ❑ If they work, what is the nature of their jobs ❑ How much they spend on day to day items

My sample size was 60 students. Initially I intended to take a survey of students from different universities like BRAC, IUB and NSU. However, due to time restrains I could only get the opportunity to survey NSU students. Out of the 60 students that I surveyed 35 of them were male and the rest 25 were females. This information is represented in the pie chart below:
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Since my survey was on University students so all of them were in the age group of 19 to 25 years of age. Six of the students were between the age group of 22 to 25 years and the rest 54 were between 19 and 22 years of age.
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By distinguishing between age groups it was able to determine whether or not people who are older spend or earn more than younger people. If you take a look at the graph below it the results can be seen:
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Since the number of students in the age group of 22 – 25 years is very small it is hard to reach to a conclusion that students who are older spend more than younger students. However, from the data we can see that students in the lower age group have an average income of around 3,700 Taka per month. Whereas, the higher age group has an average income of approximately 4,300 Taka per month. Even though the number of students in that age group included in this survey is very little, we can say that students who are older earn more than those who are younger. However, drawing up conclusions about which group spends more money would not be practical with so little information. Therefore, in my research, the main categories I made in spending habits was between males and females. After analyzing the results for the survey I found some interesting results between boys and girls. Taking cell phones for example. One of my questions was regarding the use of cell phones. I gave different ranges for the amount of money spent for a cell phone in a particular month. The results are shown below: [pic] [pic]

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Looking at the information provided in the graph we can see the use of cell phones by students in general and then separately between males and females. On average a student spends 950 Taka per month behind a cell phone and if we look more closely on average the female student spends slightly more than her male counterpart. The average female student spends 960 Taka a month while the male spends 940 Taka. This maybe for a number of reasons: ❑ Females usually use cars from their homes more than guys do. When their classes end and they wait in front of university for the cars, a lot of times they get impatient. That’s when they pick up their cell phones and start calling their parents to figure out where the car is. ❑ On the other hand, parents are more conscience about girls than they are about boys. Parents are always worrying about girls and where they are. So they might frequently call up their daughter on her cell phone to find out if she is ok. If the cell phone has an incoming charge then this adds up to her bill. This happens less for guys. ❑ Finally we all know girls want to gossip more than guys do! Since most girls don’t have to worry about paying the bills for the cell phone at the end of the month, since their parents take care of it. So they just keep on talking with their friends over the cell phone. A significant amount of guys on the other hand, earn their own money and use that to pay for the cell phone bills. This makes them more aware of the amount o money they spend buying a prepaid card or paying the bill at the end of the month for their cell phone. In a way they are more reluctant to make phone calls using their cell phones.

Another question in my survey was related to the amount of money spent on traveling. traveling could include a number of things: traveling to and from university, if the student works then, the expenses related to traveling to and from his workplace and so on. Once again ranges for amount of money spent behind traveling were given and the results are shown below:

[pic] Most of the students spend less than 500 Taka a month on average behind traveling. But it can be seen that frequency in different ranges is quite fairly distributed. A large protion of people spend between the range of 500 to 1500 Taka per month. The calculation is very simple. If a student lives in a place like Dhanmondi or Uttara, which are like 10 kilometers away from North South University, in that case he/she will need to spend 60 Taka just to get to university, using a CNG taxi. So that is 120 Taka everyday just to go to university and come back. North South university is open 4 days a week so that equals to 480 Taka and per month it comes to 1920 Taka. The average amount of money spent on traveling by a student is 1200 Taka. The average can be lower than the calculations for a number of reasons. Firstly many students live nearby the North South University campus. Their travels expenses will be much lower than the ones shown in the calculation above. Secondly, a lot of students use private cars and don’t have to pay for the travel. Lastly, some of the students may use other forms of transport besides CNG taxis, they might use buses which are much more cheaper. In that case the total average expenditure would drop down once again. [pic] Looking at the above graph we can see that females actually spend more money behind traveling then men do, which is actually quite shocking. I expected to find men spending more money than the women, because generally it is thought that it isn’t safe for women to roam around on their own. But this survey as proved me wrong. On average the female NSU student spends 1330 Taka on travel a month, whereas the male students spend only 1120 Taka. The next part of the survey was related to the amount of money students spend behind food and clothing in a particular month. Quite surprisingly the guys spend more than the girls in this category. Usually it seems like the girls are the ones who are always buying new dresses for this party and that party, but the girl spends an average of 1420 Taka, whereas, the boy spends 1550 Taka. This might be because the result is a combination of food and clothing together. Perhaps the male spends less in clothing but spends more on food on average. On top of that, food is a daily expenditure, clothing on the other hand is a bit less frequent. So if the guy spends money of having his lunch outside in a fast chain everyday, that might be a reason for a higher average. Girls don’t eat that much outside, so they have to spend less. Considering another factor we can see that when on dates the guys always pay the bill so, actually for those of the guys who have girlfriends then end up spending even more. However, on average a normal student spends approximately 1500 Taka per month of food and clothing. All the information is whon in the graphs below:
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[pic] Since smoking is a major problem for university students and since most students spend a lot of money behind cigarettes everyday, I decided to include it as a part of my survey. I was quite shocked to find out non of the girls admitted that they smoke. Even though it is rare in Bangladesh, a few girls do smoke nowadays. I guess my sample size just wasn’t large enough to cover them. I also find a large number of guys who don’t smoke. Which was also quite surprising, because in reality it is quite hard to find a guy who doesn’t smoke, especially in the NSU campus. Most guys spend about 500 – 1500 Taka every month just behind cigarettes, which is almost the same amount they spend on food and clothing!! The average money spent by guys on cigarettes per month is around 750 Taka. The graph on the next page shows detailed results:

[pic] Lastly I used a question to find out how much the students spend on entertainment. Entertainment includes a wide variety of things. Starting from CD and DVD’s all the way to dates. Most students going to NSU are stressed out after a long day of classes and work. At the end of the day they try to find something which allows them to escape from the pressure of day to day life. A modern trend of students, especially male students, is to go and play some pool. Pool has become one of the fastest growing sports in Dhaka in the past few years. It is so popular that NSU even has its own pool tournament every year. With plenty pool parlors around the NSU campus like Rocking Zone, Pool Lovers and Fantasy, the guys are always jumping into them right after or sometimes even in between classes to play a board or two. For girls, on the other hand, watching new movies and listening to audio CD’s is a lot of fun. Whatever the definition of fun maybe people always spend a certain amount of money for entertainment. Nowadays internet has also become a very crucial part of a person’s entertainment. Soft wares such as MSN and Yahoo messenger have now made it possible to talk and even see a person who is on the other side of the planet with just a click of the mouse. So a lot of students keep in touch with friends and relatives who live abroad. I personally have a lot of friends with whom I spent my entire school with, who now live in UK or USA. So I am more than willing to spend a thousand Taka every month just to talk to them. On average the NSU student spends around 850 Taka every month, for entertainment. Out of this boys spend slightly more than the girls. Boys have an average spending of 900 Taka while girls spend 790 Taka per month. No one spends more than 2500 Taka, however. This maybe because people just aren’t willing enough to spend that much of money or they just don’t get the right thing to spend it on. Plus with all the piracy around CD’s and DVD’s become very cheap. Even the latest movies are available at 100 Taka only. [pic]
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CONCLUSION

After analyzing all the data from my survey I can conclude that students just don’t waste their money nowadays. There are always some exceptions who spend 30000 to 40000 Taka every month, but in general students just use the money they need to. Most students even use it out of their own pockets and try not to put more pressure on the parents. Studying in one of the leading private universities of Bangladesh, itself is a great pressure on a person, both financially and mentally. A student has to give his best efforts to stay within the top class of students. After all they do say it’s a dog eat dog world out there and only those who are the fittest, in this case the students who come out with the best grades will survive. A person has to learn how to spend his money wisely from this age. After graduation a person will get into a job and for boys that means becoming totally independent from his parents. So until and unless he is able to keep track of how he is using his finances he won’t be able to thrive in the long run. Before finishing my research paper I would like to thank my respected teacher once again for giving me the chance to work on this topic. I hope my research will come to use of students in the future.