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.

How Used: Freshman orientation classes.

Program Description: Prior to their implementation of USA Funds^® Life Skills^®, DeVry University participated in a default-prevention research project that focused on the identification of risk factors associated with loan default. The findings of the study indicated a strong statistical relationship between low rates of student persistence and high rates of student-loan default. Coincidentally, the deans and instructors were becoming increasingly concerned about the attrition of quality students in their classes, unaware that many of these students entered college with serious financial challenges.

After a campus visit by the research team and much campus dialogue, the deans decided that the freshman-orientation class was a potential vehicle for helping to bridge the gap between students' financial lives and their academic lives. Module 1: Get a Grip on Your Finances: Smart Spending for Students and Module 2: Seek out Financial Aid: Funding Resources and Financial Obligations now are incorporated into the freshman-orientation classes,

Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving, and are offered for either two or three credits.

This course is designed to help students master the fundamentals of effective problem solving and apply them to a range of practical problems, including money management and budgeting. Major areas of subject matter and activity include problem-solving methodologies, research strategies, logical reasoning, critical analysis of information and cooperative learning. The financial-aid office is one of the "laboratories" for the class; instructors send students to the office to check the status of their paperwork and learn more about their own personal finances. It's not uncommon to find students who aren't up to date on their financial-aid paperwork.

Staffing Requirements: Instructors are responsible for delivering Modules 1 and 2 in the Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving classes.

Recommendations: Making financial literacy and debt management high priorities for a campus is essential to the successful implementation of USA Funds Life Skills. Additional recommendations include:

• Keep the program manageable by starting with target groups.
• Integrate USA Funds Life Skills into existing programs, like the freshman-orientation classes.
• Customize the program to your population.
• If faculty do the instruction, find ways to support them by ordering the materials or offering to appear as a guest speaker.
• Evaluate your consumers continually.
• Sustain interest in the program by marketing to the right population.
• Develop a systematic approach for evaluating the needs of students.
• Use this program as a strategy for showing students you care beyond the classroom.

Campus Contact:
Tommy Sims, Director of Evening and Weekend Academic Operations
Phone: (972) 929-9731
E-mail: tsims@mail.dal.devry.edu