Classification: Four-year private college or university.
Modules Used:
- Module 1: Get a Grip on Your Finances: Smart Spending for
Students.
- Module 5: Now That You Are About to Graduate: Taking Control of Your
Life.
How Used:
- Welcome week.
- Senior seminar.
Program Description: Encouraging freshmen to take ownership
of their finances and preparing seniors to take control of their future are the
primary goals of the financial-literacy initiative at Butler University.
Recognizing that parents are heavily involved in the pre-enrollment decisions
that students make, the financial-aid staff uses USA Funds Life
Skills® Module 1: Get a Grip on Your Finances: Smart Spending for
Students to encourage freshmen to take more personal responsibility for
their finances. The assistant director of financial aid uses this module in this
presentation to four groups of freshmen during welcome week. These required
sessions focus primarily on borrowing, budgeting and credit-card dos and
don'ts.
During the senior year, the Office of Financial Aid
offers a comprehensive seminar, which includes many of the topics addressed in
Module 5: Now That You Are About to Graduate: Taking Control of Your
Life. To reinforce the information covered in this two-hour seminar, the
financial-aid staff provides each student with a copy of the skills book for
this module in their seminar folders.
Staffing Requirements: The financial-aid staff is
responsible for delivering Module 1 to freshmen during welcome week and for
providing seniors with copies of the student skills book from Module 5.
Recommendations: The financial-aid staff suggests inquiring
about the strategies that other campuses have used to implement USA Funds Life
Skills. Decide what’s most important for your students and focus on those topics
first. They also suggest diversifying the program by getting others, especially
external financial professionals, involved.
Campus Contact:
Teresa O’Mara, Assistant Director of
Financial Aid
Phone: (877) 940-8200
E-mail: tomara@butler.edu