JUNE 2005

Six Tips Help Your Students Manage School, Relationships
Submitted by The USA Funds Services SASFAA Team

Graduate and professional students and adult learners who juggle committed relationships with the demands of school face special challenges. School obligations can make it difficult for students to find and manage the time with their partners that are critical to the life of a relationship. Partners, however, are an important source of support for these students who are involved in committed relationships.

The USA Funds® Life Skills® financial-literacy program provides strategies for financial-aid administrators to share with their graduate and professional students and adult learners—and their partners—to help them start thinking about ways to find time together.

According to the new USA Funds Life Skills module, “Connect as a Couple – Confronting Relationship Challenges Together”, the following are six tactics that students and their partners can follow in finding time for each other despite the demands of school:

  1. Schedule time for your partner.
  2. Communicate frequently—telephone, send e-mail, write supportive notes, and interact with each other face-to-face and without distractions.
  3. Listen actively to your partner.
  4. Anticipate and plan for stressful times, such as paper deadlines and exam dates during the academic calendar.
  5. Compensate your partner for those times when you were overburdened with school responsibilities. Make up for lost time.

  1. Maintain involvement in your partner’s life. Know what your partner is doing and feeling.

Partners, the module points out, can be a key source of support in academic endeavors as well as in emotional, financial, personal and recreational well-being.

Southwest Student Service Corp


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