Classification: Private career school.
Modules Used:
- Module 1: Get a Grip on Your Finances: Smart Spending for
Students.
- Module 2: Seek out Financial Aid: Funding Resources and Financial
Obligations.
- Module 4: Take Control of Your Future: Finishing School and Repaying
Your Loans.
How Used:
- Training classes.
- Entrance interviews.
Program Description: The American Institute of Technology is
dedicated to helping its students develop and learn those skills necessary to be
successful in the trucking industry. Financial literacy is one of those skills.
Managing family relationships and meeting financial obligations while they're on
the road and away from home is an important component of the students' training
program.
After reviewing USA Funds Life Skills®, the director
of financial aid and the director of education agreed that it was a good fit for
AIT. Module 2: Seek out Financial Aid: Funding Resources and Financial
Obligations, subsequently was used to enhance the one-on-one entrance
interviews conducted by the financial-aid staff with all students when they
enroll.
In the training area, the flexibility of the program allowed instructors to
integrate selected modules into their existing lesson plans with relative ease.
All instructors eligible to teach in the classroom were trained by USA Funds
debt-management consultants. Instructors allocate 65 minutes in the training
classes for Module 1: Get a Grip on Your Finances: Smart Spending for
Students. All students participate in this session, which focuses on
spending and saving, developing a financial game plan and making a budget and
sticking to it. Instructors allocate 50 minutes in the training classes for
Module 4: Take Control of Your Future: Finishing School and Repaying Your
Loans. The primary focus of this session is on strategies for managing
one's personal finances.
Staffing Requirements: Instructors facilitate Modules 1 and
4, and a financial-aid professional delivers Module 2.
Recommendations: AIT points to the value of inviting USA
Funds consultants to provide training to the AIT instructors in the use of USA
Funds Life Skills. According to AIT staff, the consultants brought new ideas and
inspired the staff to think about new approaches to money management. The
consultants also are able to help campus leaders make the connection between
student-loan defaults and student retention.
According to the director of education, students enjoy the money-management
segments of their training and understand more about their finances. He shared
that students really appreciate receiving personal copies of personal-finance
software, which is packaged with Module 1, along with the student skills books.
He notes that USA Funds Life Skills materials permitted AIT to significantly
enhance its money-management training.
AIT is encouraged by the improvement in its cohort-default rate. The school
posted a rate of 22.2 percent in 1997. After stressing default-prevention
measures since 1998, the school's rate dropped to 8.4 percent in 2002.
Campus Contacts:
Penny Mitchell, Director of Financial
Aid, and Roy Donning, Director of Education
Phone: (602) 233-2222
E-mail:
pmitchell@ait-schools.com or rdonning@ait-schools.com