Midwestern University is a private school serving 1,800 graduate and professional students in Downers Grove, Ill. The school offers seven health-professions programs.

Students follow curricula that require them to attend classes from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. in the first half of the curricula. The students are on rotations in hospitals across the nation in the second half of their programs. These factors can make attracting students and faculty to debt-management programs difficult. Additionally, Midwestern’s student financial services office does not have a budget for financial-literacy activities.

To tackle these challenges, Midwestern’s student financial services partners with other campus departments to incorporate debt-management sessions into programming already in place on campus. Additionally, the office conducts sessions such as evening events with couples in which the school provides dinner and babysitting services; the campus’ student services office covers the expenses.

Programs
Kim Brown, director of student financial services, customizes the modules of the USA Funds^® Life Skills^® financial-literacy program, the cornerstone of Midwestern’s debt-management efforts, to meet the needs of many audiences at the school.

• Each student meets with the student financial services staff at least five times during the typical two-to-four-year program, starting with the student’s admissions interview. At that time the school presents USA Funds Life Skills Module 6, “Embrace New Academic Challenges — Drafting Your Professional Plan,” and Minimodule 1, “Reentering School — How Do I Adjust My Standard of Living?” Meetings with potential students focus on the return on the student’s investment in education, a major concern for students who carry large student-loan balances, as well as types of aid and how to apply, and other issues.
• During orientation students take part in a one-hour session featuring USA Funds Life Skills Module 2, “Seek out Financial Aid — Funding Resources and Financial Obligations.” An interactive, mandatory core-course session features information from USA Funds Life Skills Module 8, “Take Stock — Devising a Realistic Financial Plan,” and Minimodule 1.
• At the midpoint of students’ training, student financial services hosts a “rotation orientation” session that features USA Funds Life Skills Module 5, “Now That You Are About to Graduate — Taking Control of Your Life,” Module 8 and Minimodule 2, “How Do I Survive During My Residency?” Students learn about topics such as repayment and consolidation, and each receives a folder with information about the student’s own level of student-loan debt.
• Each student also attends a mandatory graduate exit session that lasts up to two hours and focuses on repayment, consolidation, forbearance, deferment and default. The program uses USA Funds Life Skills Minimodule 2.

Other financial-literacy events presented at Midwestern include evening sessions with couples, focusing on USA Funds Life Skills Module 7, “Connect as a Couple — Confronting Relationship Challenges Together,” ice-cream socials for couples and other optional sessions.

Results
Students, university officials and the school’s board of trustees all have expressed their support for the school’s financial-literacy efforts. The student financial services-staff members receive many hand-written notes of thanks. Perhaps the best evidence that the activities are effective, Brown notes, is that many students visit her office to return unneeded education-loan funds. While the school does not struggle with default-rate issues, many of its students have large amounts of education-loan debt and a need for basic financial-literacy and stress-management information. Over the past five years, the education-loan debt among students in the school’s most-expensive program — medical school — has remained steady.