Students leaving college are routinely advised not to accrue too much debt. However, you also need to build a credit history so you can borrow money to buy a home or a car. Possible credit-related topics for a college paper include how to establish credit, the level of credit in relation to income that experts consider a prudent ratio and why, and the credit reporting bureaus are and how they operate.
In a paper on personal finance considerations about your residence, you might evaluate the financial impact of variables such as whether the tenant or the landlord pays for the utilities. If the landlord pays only some utilities, you could explore which landlord-paid utilities add the most value to the rental. You could also analyze a variety of personal financial circumstances and determine in each instance whether owning a house or renting offers a better financial value. Different types of ownership also have greater or lesser value in different circumstances. You could analyze circumstances when owning a single-family home makes more financial sense than owning a unit in a housing complex, such as a condominium development that offers maintenance such as snow plowing.
Long-term planning considerations in personal finance include savings and investment planning, retirement planning, life and disability insurance and long-term care insurance. For some people, long-term financial planning may also include charitable giving and establishing a fund for their children’s college education. For your paper, you could explore what savings and investment allocations make a strong financial portfolio. You could write about the difference in life insurance needs between a single person and someone who has to provide for children.
The U.S. financial system is not static. The Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s resulted in the creation of such programs as federal insurance of bank deposits and the Social Security system. You could write a personal finance paper on a historical economic event, such as the stock market crash at the outset of the Depression. Your paper could also evaluate the lessons for today of particular historical economic events.