New Online Course Being Offered by the Department of Economics

Personal Finance and Financial Decision-Making

Ever wonder about the difference between a debit card and a credit card?  How about the difference between whole life insurance and term life insurance?  What’s the difference between a retirement plan and an IRA?  How does one buy a house?  What decisions should you make today (or shortly after you graduate) to start off on the right path so you can retire financially comfortable?

If you want to learn the answers to these questions and dozens of other important financial questions, then you should consider taking a new online class offered by the Department of Economics called “Personal Finance and Financial Decision-Making”  (Eco 110 – 01:220:110:90). 

The official course description is

The focus will be on providing basic tools of financial planning, insurance, borrowing, tax planning, and managing money. Topics include simple interest, simple discount, compound interest, annuities, investments, retirement plans, credit cards, mortgages, student loans, leasing, insurance, and futures and options. The goal of this class is to increase financial literacy and give students the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be financially secure today and in the future. 

The course will satisfy the SAS Core Curriculum quantitative requirements (QQ and QR) and is the sort of practical course that will benefit you today and for the rest of your life.  Learn how to make good financial decisions!

A draft syllabus can be reviewed here:          http://tinyurl.com/bmxquvn

The class is being offered only as a fully online course.  You will view lectures online each week and do weekly problem sets.  This should afford you flexibility to fit this course into whatever your Fall schedule looks like. 

Your grade is based on the weekly problem sets (10%), two 1-hour online exams during the semester (15% each) and a 3-hour on-campus final exam (60%).

Policy on Outside Courses

                A maximum of three approved classes taken outside RU-New Brunswick Economics Department can be counted towards the major.  It is advisable to have any outside course preapproved. See our policies on online and short courses.

Policy on Online Courses

                We do not accept courses as prerequisite equivalent when grades are not substantially based on proctored or identity-secure administration of a cumulative final exam (i.e. 50% or more of the final grade).

Department of Economics general advising available in New Jersey Hall, room 202 (including declaration of major) 848-932-7363
Monday - Friday: 9:00 - 12:00pm and 1:00 - 5:00pm

*********************************************
Summer Office hours for Professor Landon-Lane, Director of Undergraduate Studies
are by appointment only, New Jersey Hall room 419.

Students will no longer be able to use RU-Newark and RU-Camden courses in Intermediate Microeconomics, Intermediate Macroeconomics, and Econometrics towards the SAS Economics major.

Please note that this policy is notretroactive: students who have taken these courses in the Spring of 2011 or earlier semesters will be allowed to use them to fulfill SAS Economics major requirements.  Intro to Micro and Macro classes taken at RU_ Newark or RU_ Camden need to be preapproved. See our policy on Online Courses and Short Courses.

Due to overwhelming demand for our courses and constraints on room size, we are unable to grant special permission numbers for courses that are closed.