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07 May 2018 Photo Valentino Ndaba
Study shows students shop more and save less Dr Koloba
Dr Habofanwe Koloba, senior lecturer at the University of the Free State’s Department of Business proposes financial literacy as the solution to student debt and lack of saving predicament.

Did you know that failing to service store or credit card debt may jeopardise the growth of South Africa’s economy? Outstanding payments might seem inconsequential but they may adversely affect the country’s credit rating. Dr Habofanwe Koloba, senior lecturer at the University of the Free State’s Department of Business Management recently published an article titled: “Access to credit and saving behaviour of generation Y students: Are we educating an over-indebted generation,” in the Journal of Economics and Finance Studies which speaks of this phenomenon. 

From analysing the financial behaviour of a group of 145 millennials and literature, Dr Koloba hypothesised that easy access to store and credit cards by Generation Y students had influenced their poor saving habits. “There is a statistically significant relationship between store or credit card usage and lack of savings among Generation Y students,” he writes.

Salvaging the situation
Dr Koloba advocates for the integration of financial literacy within the curriculum in addition to parents playing an active role in instilling financial intelligence in their children from a young age. He also asserts that financial institutions need to offer products that encourage saving among students rather than luring them to indebtedness.

The benefits of saving 
Savings are channelled into dividend-producing investments which fuel the eradication of poverty, inequality and unemployment as well as provide capital for infrastructure development. Needless to say, a consumerist society with a poor saving culture does not promise to attain these successes.

News Archive

Core herd established on the UFS Experimental Farm
2006-05-24

Seven of the foremost stud-farmers of the Afrikaner Cattle Breeders Society of South Africa, in cooperation with the University of the Free State (UFS), established a core herd on the UFS Paradys Experimental Farm outside Bloemfontein.

Each stud-farmer donated five heifers to the project.  In return, each farmer will annually receive a performance tested bull or semen of a performance tested bull out of the core herd.

With the establishment of the herd, the UFS wants to create a genetically outstanding herd to be used for the training of students, research as well as information sessions for farmers.  All the animals that cannot be used by the herd or the stud-farmers will be made available for auctioning at the UFS Paradys Experimental Farm.  

The herd will be kept under commercial conditions to ensure that only those animals who have adapted can be made available to the industry.  For more information Prof Frikkie Neser can be contacted at (051) 401-9595.

In front from the left are Mr Julian Balt (stud-farmer from  Carletonville), Prof Johan Greyling (Departmental Chairperson: Department of Animal- and Wildlife- and Grassland Sciences), Prof Herman van Schalkwyk (Dean: Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences) and Mr Neels van Rooyen (stud-farmer  from Zastron). At the back from the left are Mr Willem Kooij (stud-farmer  from  Potchefstroom), Messrs Johan and Estian Cronjé (stud-farmers from  Winburg), Mr Willie Cloete (stud-farmer from Vryburg), Prof Frikkie Neser (lecturer at the UFS Department of Animal and Wildlife and Grassland Sciences) and Mr Schalk de Jager (stud-farmer from  Vryburg).

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