[kork13]

I'll jump in... Personally, I disagree. There is merit to the position, particularly regarding student loans.... If you're walking out of college with boatloads of student debt, yea, you probably shouldn't be investing a few thousand dollars every year, but instead reducing your loan dependency. However, I would still recommend any college student to start investing while still in college. Not with alot, but maybe $50/mo. Just to get your feet wet.

My reasoning is that college is an investment in the future--it's there for you to learn the knowledge, skills and understanding you will need in a professional career. I submit that learning to research and invest wisely is just as important as learning advanced calculus and covalent bonds. The latter prepare you for your career. The former prepare you for life in general. Better to learn and get started early than to go blindly into it full force.

I started investing when I was a college junior (20yo). I didn't have any student loans, so I was able to put ~$150-200/mo into investments. Some choices weren't good, some were. But I learned those lessons when I was still only dealing with low sums of money. I think I (and the person who guided me toward starting to invest) did me a favor by starting while in college. Having learned those lessons ahead of time, now 6 months out of college (with 6x the income I had then), I have over $15k invested. I'm glad I made the choices I did, and I'm in a much better place now because of it.