Something big has happened and it's to do with money. But you don't have any, so what's the problem? Laura Miller talks to author and Big Swinging Dick Michael Ridpath.

You’re a student. You’ve got no stocks, shares, or bonds. No mortgage. No pension. And no property portfolio in need of diversification. You scrape by on less than what a City type loses down the bucket seats of their Porsche (repayable on graduation). Financial news is for other people.

Wrong! says Michael Ridpath, ex-trader turned best selling author of financial thriller Free To Trade: “Students will be affected by the recession, just in different ways.”

Most KU students were still in the playground during the early Nineties and Britain’s last economic meltdown. Ridpath, 47, was playing the buy/sell game as a junk bond trader. Now he’s critical of “immoral” City bonuses; he also reckons the financial world is, like his books, “full of ethical dilemmas.”

So did Ridpath tell stories on the Square Mile? He half smiles: “The ability to make things up is definitely at a premium in finance.”  Doesn’t sound like there was much of a dilemma.

Kingston’s 08/09 undergrads face more practical problems. In a few years they will be spat out of the education system owing a very real, record average of £20,000. The truth is some will owe even more. Students expecting a quick return on their biggest financial investment to date could be disappointed; nobody likes to recruit in a recession. 

In Kingston, recruitment has been down all year. Now unemployment is rising nationally. Some KU students who can, rather than face a long stint living back with the parents, plan to escape abroad for a couple of years. But if you’re stuck here?

Ridpath reckons current students who borrow smart will be OK. “It’s going to be difficult”, he admits, “but it’s better for those still in university or graduating soon than for those who graduated last year. Why? How good was coming into a job at Lehman Brothers for three months and then being told to go because the place has gone bust? “

Key to students’ survival is realising banks are not their friends. Ridpath condemns “highly irresponsible” high street banks that throw money, or rather debt, at students inexperienced in finance: “Banks that do that, should suffer and they are suffering now.”  Students, he says, must consider high interest rates on credit cards and loans before attractive ‘freebies’, and not fall for lenders’ sales tactics. Banks can demand back as quickly as they give out; often in full and without warning.

So how long does the former trader predict it will be before the good times roll again? “In the medium term students are well-placed. Opportunities will be better towards the end of next year and will be great by 2011.”

Michael Ridpath’s Top Financial Advice (for free):
* Take the official Student Loan; the interest is tiny and you don’t start repaying it until you’re earning over £15,000
* Try to make and stick to a budget plan
* Never get involved with credit cards
* Just because everyone is trying to sell you borrowing, don’t think it must be a good idea.

Michael Ridpath was at Kingston University as part of Words In Context, a series of talks organised by the English literature and creative writing department, which runs until the December 9.