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STUDENT ATHLETESINVESTING

Thinking Forward: Student-Athlete Investing

Written by: Tonya (she/her)

4 min read | Published: January 11, 2024

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You have spent countless hours on the fields, courts, pools, and tracks, honing your skills and becoming the best version of your athletic self, in addition to all the hours you’ve spent increasing your knowledge. Now it’s time to increase your financial knowledge, begin thinking about the future, and consider investing.

As a student-athlete, you have a day packed with classes, hitting practice once or twice per day, completing homework, actual study time, and commuting to all of it. Your life is busy, to say the least. However, this is your reminder that life is never too busy to start planning your financial future.

When you start planning, you create a future that is filled with less stress because of the actions taken today.

The Facts on Athletics

While not everyone plans to go pro after college, it’s the hope for many student-athletes — maybe you or one of your friends fall into this category. However, the facts about student-athletes are a stark reminder that this route is challenging and, for this reason, the path to glory is one many won’t choose.

According to the NCAA, only 7% of high school athletes move on to college to participate in NCAA sports, and only 2% of NCAA college athletes will go on to play at the professional level. So, the struggle is real. This is not about steering you away from the opportunity to rise to this challenge, but instead to help you take steps toward ensuring your financial needs and goals are not part of this struggle so you can achieve your dreams — no matter how lofty or humble they may be.

Unraveling investing

Forbes defines investing as, “the process of buying assets that increase in value over time and provide returns in the form of income payments or capital gains.” That might sound a bit complicated, but as a student-athlete, you have been investing your whole life. You are the investment! Each training session, meal, and good night’s rest make up the buying process to increase the value of your body, skills, and aptitude over time, which results in your payoff — your performance.

With that in mind, let’s talk about using real-world money to build your wealth and future financial security. Investing may sound scary, which is a great reason to listen to OUCU’s, Wallet Watch podcast, where various financial topics get a more in-depth look. The episode titled “Investing 101” discusses investing and how to begin the process yourself.

Learning the basics

If you search the internet, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by all the information out there. Instead, let’s start with things you can do today that will have a big impact on tomorrow.

Remember, investing is about the long game. It’s about discipline and delayed gratification to live in the bigger financial picture of your future.

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/what-is-investing/

https://oucufin40.evergreen3c.com/blogs/budgeting/know-your-money/

https://oucufin40.evergreen3c.com/blogs/investing-basics/what-is-your-investing-style/

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/compliance/recruiting/NCAA_RecruitingFactSheet.pdf

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