Central Wyoming College: Riverton, Wyo.

Classification: Two-year public college or university.

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 3: Work Hard but Smart: How to Be Successful in School and Graduate on Time.
  • Module 5: Now That You Are About to Graduate: Taking Control of Your Life.

How Used:

  • Freshman seminar.
  • Freshman-orientation courses.
  • Entrance-counseling workshops.
  • Financial-aid counseling.
  • Exit counseling.

Program Description: The CWC financial-literacy program was established in response to an escalating default rate of 21.8 percent in 1996. The proactive approach, developed by the financial-aid staff, was endorsed and supported by the entire campus, especially the academic dean and curriculum committee. Initially, the staff relied on materials they developed on their own, or adapted from other credit-counseling sources. In 2002 CWC adopted USA Funds® Life Skills® to help the college achieve its primary goal of providing students with the financial skills they needed to be successful and persist in college.

Currently, CWC uses four of the five USA Funds Life Skills modules as the infrastructure for its financial-literacy program. The modules are integrated into specific campus programs to disseminate critical financial information to students.

Module 1: Get a Grip on Your Finances: Smart Spending for Students is used in freshman seminar and freshman orientation courses as vehicles for providing budgeting workshops and helping all freshmen learn to "stretch" their financial resources throughout the term and academic year.

Module 2: Seek out Financial Aid: Funding Resources and Financial Obligations is used in entrance-counseling workshops that are required of all first-time borrowers. These sessions focus on discussions of budgets, indebtedness, length of enrollment, and deferment and forbearance.

Module 3: Work Hard but Smart: How to Be Successful in School and Graduate on Time is part of financial-aid counseling, a new strategy added when USA Funds Life Skills was adopted. These sessions are required of all students who fail to maintain academic standards and who are ineligible to receive further federal aid. Students who find themselves on academic probation are reminded of the requirements for maintaining financial-aid eligibility, along with the identification of factors in their lives that may be hindering their academic progress, such as course loads, time management, stress management, finances, or family circumstances. In addition, the financial-aid counselor uses material from Module 1 to reinforce the money-management concepts introduced during the freshman seminar and orientation courses.

Module 5: Now That You Are About to Graduate: Taking Control of Your Life is included in student-loan exit counseling, which is required of all students who borrowed during the academic year. This module, which reiterates previous information provided on deferment, forbearance and repayment options, is sent to the students who borrowed. Exit counseling then is completed online.

CWC's efforts to improve financial literacy have produced tangible results, as follows:

  • The default rate has decreased to 12.7 percent from 21.8 percent in 1996. The financial-aid staff attributes their success in lowering the default rate to their proactive default-prevention plan that incorporated USA Funds Life Skills.
  • The retention rate for entering degree-seeking freshmen has increased to 47 percent from 42 percent during the last year.

Staffing Requirements: Members of the financial-aid staff are responsible for the implementation of the USA Funds Life Skills modules.

Recommendations: The financial-aid staff gives high marks to the quality of the USA Funds Life Skills modules. They achieve their intended purpose — enabling students to acquire successful financial survival skills. USA Funds Life Skills training for staff is effective, and the financial-aid staff would like to see other campus personnel, including the faculty involved in the freshman seminar and orientation course, participate in the training and actual presentation of the modules. The financial-aid staff also would like to see the addition of a required financial-literacy seminar for all entering freshmen. They recognize the need to provide financial-literacy training for high-school students as well.

Campus Contact:
Jacquelyn Burns, Financial Aid Director
Phone: (307) 855-2150
E-mail: jburns@cwc.edu