The overmotivated worker

Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial advice, gathered from around the web:

Luxury prices for campus rent

Developers have descended on the areas around public universities — dramatically raising rent prices paid by students, said Ali Breland at Bloomberg Businessweek. "Real estate companies bulldoze aging buildings to put up the kinds of amenity-rich, luxury apartments that might appeal to upper-middle-class parents looking for a safe, comfortable place for their student to live" but that often leave lower-income families struggling with costs. The median rent in one popular area around the University of Texas–Austin campus, called West Campus, has risen 37 percent since 2009 to $1,200 per month. The nation's largest provider of luxury student housing, American Campus Communities, raised the rent in Austin by 24 percent from 2013 to 2017, and in Ann Arbor, around the University of Michigan, by 26 percent from 2012 to 2017.

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Wells Fargo's overdraft-fee machine

Wells Fargo kept bank accounts open for months after telling customers they had been closed, said Emily Flitter at The New York Times, and then repeatedly charged them $35 overdraft fees. "An account the customer believes to be closed can stay open if it has a balance, even one below zero." The bank can then charge a fee for an overdrawn account each time a transaction is processed. "Most banks program their systems to stop honoring transactions on the specified closing date, but Wells Fargo allows accounts to remain open for two more months." One man discovered he owed the bank nearly $1,500 in fees less than a month after closing all 13 of his checking accounts — even after collecting money for the balance in his accounts at his local branch.

The overmotivated worker

Companies looking to get the most from their employees can wind up with too much of a good thing, said Alina Dizik at The Wall Street Journal. While workers who are engaged in their job "are more productive, self-motivated, and happier coming to the office," new research shows there are downsides. "Employees who are too engaged are likely to have difficulties in their personal lives." They can also become difficult to manage, can be overly demanding of superiors, or can even behave unethically to get ahead. Researchers examined zookeepers, who "tend to look at their job as a calling," which makes them "tougher to manage." Senior staff with "a higher sense of moral duty" were more likely to struggle to respect deadlines and work as a team.