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.
• Module 5: Now That You Are About to Graduate: Taking Control of Your Life.

How Used:

• Interpersonal-communication seminar.
• Exit counseling.

Program Description: The primary goal of the financial-literacy initiative at the International Academy of Design and Technology is to lower the cohort-default rate. From the beginning, the initiative has had a strong endorsement from the president and members of the senior-management team, who believe that helping students control their spending is key to helping them stay in school. They supported the debt-manager supervisor's suggestion to integrate USA Funds^® Life Skills^® Module 1: Get a Grip on Your Finances: Smart Spending for Students and Module 2: Seek out Financial Aid: Funding Resources and Financial Obligations into a required seminar during the student's first term. The instructors for the interpersonal-communication seminars were then trained to engage students in discussions of how they should manage their financial lives while they're in school. Offered after the fourth week of classes, the instructors framed the 60-minute presentations around the broader topic of how students should live while they're in school. Accessing financial resources and maintaining credit were deemed important issues since their students often come to rely on private loans.

The debt-manager supervisor also developed exit-counseling sessions using Module 4: Take Control of Your Future: Finishing School and Repaying Your Loans and Module 5: Now That You Are About to Graduate: Taking Control of Your Life to prepare students to repay their loans after they graduate. These 90-minute sessions, offered during the month students are graduating, focus on "retaining" students through repayment — not just graduation. Students' rights and responsibilities are spelled out in great detail during this time. Using the USA Funds Life Skills budgeting CDs with these students is a high priority, as well as getting them to commit to an ongoing relationship with the debt-management office. Students are asked to make an appointment with the debt-management office four months after graduation to assess how their repayment options are working.

Staffing Requirements: The instructors for the interpersonal-communications seminar are responsible for delivering Modules 1 and 2. The debt-manager supervisor is responsible for delivering Modules 4 and 5 as part of the exit-counseling process.

Recommendations: The debt-manager supervisor identified three key elements that contributed to the program's success:

• The endorsement of the president and senior management helped to facilitate a smooth implementation of USA Funds Life Skills.
• The design of the program made it easy to distribute the modules across campus units.
• Training was helpful as seminar instructors prepared to present the USA Funds Life Skills materials.

Campus Contact:
Erma Ruiz, Debt Manager Supervisor
Phone: (813) 880-8059
E-mail: erma@academy.edu