I recently came across a list of the top ranked financial websites for 18- to 34-year-olds for the year 2007. Hitwise, an Internet data tracker, listed Forbes.com as the top ranked destination followed by discount online brokerage ShareBuilder and Fidelity Investments’ 401k.com.
It would seem obvious that there are vast differences between the money management needs and interests of an 18-year-old versus a 34-year-old but I won’t argue that Forbes, which is associated with the similarly-named personal finance magazine, provides excellent editorial content and interactive tools. However, the website mostly targets high income earners so I can’t imagine too many college-age users falling in that category.
I understand why young investors would be drawn to ShareBuilder since account holders may purchase partial shares of stock, thus allowing new investors to try their hands at investing. As a Young Money advertiser ShareBuilder also markets special offers for young adults. However, the website is solely dedicated to investing which leaves out a lot of other important financial topics. The same criticism can be said for 401k.com.
So what are the best financial websites for 18- to 24-year-olds? Well, there really aren’t much to choose from. There’s Young Money which focuses mainly on careers, entrepreneurship, investing and credit and debt. I think we do a nice job with limited resources but our website could use more frequent content updates and better interactive financial tools for users.
There are other good financial websites geared for young adults such as the Wall Street Survivor stock market game (enter the promo YOUNG and get a 5,000 point bonus for signing up), and FastWeb.com, a scholarship search engine. Brass is another website worth checking out. But those sites are limited in the topics they cover. Unfortunately, most of the youth-oriented financial websites I found are actually targeted at young teens.
It’s hard for me to believe that there aren’t more quality sites targeting the college-age market. Are there some good financial websites I don’t know about? If so, please share the ones you recommend with our readers.
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Daniel, since you asked for more websites that college students need to know about, I thought I’d recommend my new site http://www.videocreditscore.com. This site mission is to educate consumers on the important topic of credit scoring and I think the video medium is perfect for college students. Let me know what you think!
p.s. I’m working on a Lesson for students as we speak.
It is great to hear about websites that are great for young people! I find myself wanting to be on sites that have an exciting look, intuitive navigation and great information. I really like http://www.commoditynewscenter.com because it does all of this! Videos, market commentary and easy to use charts help me to keep up with everything going on in the commodity markets!
It was not very long ago that I was a college student and I remember a key word in nearly everything I did was “FREE”. Well, as it happens, I now work for a Equity Research company called Ockham Research. Much of the content on our site is free and we strive to simplify investing, which is great for new investors or people who just want to learn. Please take a look http://www.ockhamresearch.com and let us know what you think.
As a side note, as far as personal finances go, it is tough to beat mint.com for tracking spending.
http://www.livingyoungandfree.com, http://www.youngfreealberta.com, http://www.youngfreetexas.com and http://www.youngfreesc.com are all websites geared toward the 18-25 age range trying to teach financial literacy and everything to young people everywhere!
They are very useful sites.
I just wanted to say that I love this site