Let’s be real—most of us hear the word “economics” and immediately imagine a dull lecture hall, a professor scribbling incomprehensible graphs on the board, and an overwhelming urge to check Instagram. But what if I told you that, whether you realize it or not, you’re already an economist?

Yes, YOU. The broke college student who debates whether to order that overpriced latte or save for weekend plans. You may not have a degree yet, but in the grand marketplace of university life, you’re making economic decisions every single day. Welcome to College Economics 101—where demand, supply, opportunity cost, and inflation aren’t just textbook terms, but the very foundation of your survival.

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The Great Pocket Money Crisis: Inflation Hits Home

Remember when a hundred bucks felt like a fortune in high school? You could buy a full meal, some snacks and still have change left over. Fast forward to college, and suddenly, a hundred bucks barely covers a large fries and a Coke. That, my friend, is inflation, and it’s hitting your wallet harder than you’d like.

Your monthly allowance, which once seemed generous, now feels like a tragic joke. Suddenly, you’re doing mental math at the grocery store, calculating the real cost of buying that extra tub of ice cream. You think about how your parents keep talking about rising petrol prices, and for the first time, you actually get it.

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The Opportunity Cost of Partying

Opportunity cost is the idea that every decision you make comes at the expense of something else. In college, this translates into the daily struggle of deciding whether to attend a lecture or sleep in.

Let’s say you’ve got a Friday night dilemma: Go out with friends or stay in and catch up on an assignment? If you choose to party, the opportunity cost is a productive evening (and possibly your grade). If you stay in, you sacrifice the social bonding experience and some much-needed fun. Either way, you’re constantly weighing costs and benefits, just like a true economist.

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Group Projects: The Ultimate Example of Division of Labor

Adam Smith talked about the division of labor, but you truly understand it when working on a group project. There’s the one person who does all the work (the high-efficiency producer), the one who disappears until submission day (the free-rider), and the one who claims to contribute but only ‘delegates’ tasks (the middleman).

At some point, you realize that maximizing efficiency means assigning tasks based on people’s strengths, just like a real economy distributes resources. The best negotiators handle the professor, the best writer crafts the report, and the best talker presents the slides. The invisible hand of group project survival guides us all.

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Budgeting 101: Surviving on a Shoestring

You may not have a government printing money, but you do have a fixed budget (a.k.a. your dwindling bank balance). Learning how to stretch it through an entire month is an exercise in macroeconomic policy.

Your budget for rent, food, social outings, and those unexpected expenses (like a group birthday gift you forgot about). You weigh needs vs. wants, allocate funds efficiently, and occasionally make terrible financial decisions—like spending all your money on a concert ticket and surviving on instant noodles for a week.

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We’re All Economists

Whether it’s bargaining with an auto driver, figuring out the best time to buy textbooks (spoiler: second-hand markets always win), or deciding whether to invest time in a side hustle, you’re making economic decisions every day. College is basically a microcosm of the real world—except with more caffeine and less actual money.

So the next time someone asks what you know about economics, just smile knowingly. Because while some are still struggling with supply and demand graphs, you’ve been living it.