Pioneer Valley students get a glimpse at cost of living at annual Reality Fair

GREENFIELD — Students from 12 local high schools got to imagine what life would be like at 25, pick a career with a salary and make financial decisions during the annual Reality Fair held at Greenfield Community College last week.

The Reality Fair, hosted in partnership with the UMassFive College Federal Credit Union and MassHire Hampshire Franklin Career Center, serves as an interactive financial simulation. More than 400 students made stops at stations pertaining to decisions about education, transportation, housing, fitness, insurance, cosmetics and more, and also took the opportunity to tour the GCC campus.

Cait Murray, community outreach manager at UMassFive, has been involved in Reality Fair events with GCC for eight years. For Murray, the goal of each Reality Fair is two-fold.

“One goal is to offer [the students] some immersive financial wellness education. They’re making a budget, they’re selecting a career and it’s all hands-on, which makes an impact,” Murray said. “The second goal is for the organizations that put this together. Our goal is to familiarize the students with resources that they can use in real life. When you’re a young adult and making these decisions, you can turn to a credit union, career resources, college.”

The collaboration between the organizations and the students is where Murray finds gratification in her work on the Reality Fair.

“I enjoy that students get these resources. I also like seeing the community engaged together to help young people feel comfortable in complicated topics,” Murray said. “It’s really just a community-based event and it’s impactful for the students.”

Besides learning financial skills, students were incentivized to use their social skills during the event. The volunteers at each respective station gave out raffle tickets that gave students a chance to win a Nintendo Switch, among other smaller prizes. Murray found it was an important nudge to give the students.

“The students are incentivized to have those good conversations. They use a website called ‘Credit For Life’ for the budgeting [during the Reality Fair],” Murray explained, “so they could just go through all the selections on the website and not engage with humans. But we want them to engage with humans, so we really push that element.”

The individual stations are staffed by volunteers from local businesses, GCC staff and other community members. GCC alumna Deb Klein, who ran the fitness station and has volunteered at the Reality Fair since 2019, found that the students were very engaged and “asking very good questions.”

Klein finds the Reality Fair helps students think about all the possibilities to help manage their future salaries wisely.

“The fair teaches them to use their salary in a smart way,” Klein said. “It’s not always a good idea to go out and buy a car; you can take the bus. Some of them are getting roommates to lower their rent.”

The students, who came from high schools across Franklin and Hampshire counties and the North Quabbin region, also found the experience to be valuable.

“I loved this Reality Fair,” said Pioneer Valley Regional School junior Hayden Girard. “I learned how to budget and spend my money smartly.”

Girard chose to be a real estate agent, which made more money than he had anticipated. But even with his high income, Girard was still taken aback by the cost of cable television.

Girard left the Reality Fair having learned one big lesson: “I should probably be a Realtor when I’m older.”

Fellow Pioneer junior Tad Loud said the Reality Fair taught him “how to spend money,” and save some of it.  Loud chose to be a pilot, but he was surprised that he made less money than he had anticipated.

“I wasn’t as rich as I had hoped,” Loud said, adding that the cost of simply “living” was higher than expected.

One of the most familiar faces among the volunteers was GCC President Michelle Schutt, who was running the education and training table. Schutt said she found the Reality Fair to be a great exercise to help students plan for life after high school.

“As the name suggests, [the fair] is a dose of ‘reality’ as it relates to their life post-high school,” Schutt said. “I don’t think students necessarily understand how complex your life becomes when you either venture into college or venture out on your own into the working world, and how many different segments you have to incorporate into your complete life.”

Schutt found some students were surprised at the cost of monthly loan repayments, but her time volunteering at the event was a valuable teaching moment, as Schutt could explain the intricacies of private and public college, loans and grants.

“Those are all really important decisions that people have to make early on in the education journey, and unfortunately, we put a lot of responsibility on young people, very young people, that have lifelong consequences,” she said. “The more often we can role-play experiences like this, the better off students will be in relation to their preparation.”

Schutt found that one of the large financial lessons students were picking up on was the dangers of credit.

“We are definitely hitting a ‘buy-now-pay-later’ revolution in our country right now. And if we can keep young people away from that, I think it’ll benefit all of us, quite frankly. The impetus for how heavy these decisions are and how they have lifelong impact is something we really have to talk more openly about,” Schutt said. She pointed out that taking on debt at an early age can impact when you have children, when you buy a house or even what partner you choose.

Ultimately, Schutt finds the annual Reality Fair to be a great community event, between the organizations involved, the volunteers and the students.

“It’s validating for all of us to recognize how many other organizations were at these tables because it really demonstrates that the entire community has their back,” Schutt said. “We all want good things for our youth. We’re all invested in their future.”

Writer Tony Hernandez and photographer Haley Bastarache are both Greenfield Community College students who have pursued internships at the Greenfield Recorder.