Colorado Technical University Offers Free Workshops Using USA Funds Life Skills

Every week Ruth Pedrie inflates 80 to 100 balloons, attaches signs to them about upcoming USA Funds Life Skills^® workshops and places them around the main classroom building at Colorado Technical University in Colorado Springs.

The balloons complement the brightly colored posters, designed by a visual-communications major, which are displayed throughout campus, on the portal and in the student newspaper listing the topics, dates and times of the workshops.

It’s all part of an effort to encourage Colorado Tech students to attend the free workshops to gain valuable financial-literacy skills that can help them manage their time and money wisely while they are on campus and after graduation.

“We’re trying to help students avoid having huge student-loan debts,” says Pedrie, a financial-aid officer at the school. “So many of them take out more loans than they need for their education.”

Colorado Technical University is based in Colorado Springs and has campuses in Pueblo, Denver, Sioux Falls, S.D., and North Kansas City, Mo. Students can study a wide variety of courses and pursue degrees ranging from the associate level all the way to the doctoral level.

After attending a USA Funds default-management workshop last winter, Pedrie proposed the USA Funds Life Skills program to the university’s president. With two daughters in college, the president was acutely aware of the costs associated with postsecondary education, and he asked Pedrie to develop an implementation plan. She joined forces with the deans of education and management, and they decided to offer all nine undergraduate and graduate modules – each in a 2-hour workshop format.

The USA Funds Life Skills workshops begin the second week of each 11-week quarter, and Pedrie says the school is experimenting with determining the best times for the workshops. The first session was offered the week of July 19. So far, she has planned lunchtime sessions but attendance has been low, she says. Most of the 2,000 students on the Colorado Springs campus are working adults attending school at night, so Pedrie is considering testing a late-afternoon timeframe for future workshops.

Staff members from different areas — including financial aid, career services, admissions, instructors and the office of the comptroller — participate in leading the workshops. Pedrie has made presentations at faculty meetings, so academic staff members understand the program and its purpose, and she’s hoping some instructors might incorporate some USA Funds Life Skills material into their courses.

“Life Skills is such a wonderful name for the program because it truly teaches life skills,” Pedrie says. “The information in the program can benefit all of us in our lives. For instance, many of us haven’t stopped to think about our wants versus our needs — we have a tendency to go through life and take things for granted,” she says.

The school’s president has encouraged staff members to attend the workshops with students as long as they can arrange the time off with their supervisors. And, Pedrie says, he’s considering making the first two modules — Module 1: “Get a Grip on Your Finances — Smart Spending for Students” and Module 2: “Seek out Financial Aid — Funding Resources and Financial Obligations” — mandatory for students receiving financial aid.

“A lot of our students just don’t know this information,” Pedrie says, recalling one student’s reaction when he learned the impact of saving just $50 a month while he was in school. “By the time he graduated he’d have $2,400 to apply to his loan balance, and we showed him how that would affect his loan payments.

“We really opened his eyes!” she says. “If we can save one student from default then we’ve done our job,” she says.

All USA Funds Life Skills modules include a manual and an interactive CD-ROM for students. Also included are a trainer’s manual to assist those delivering the program and a trainer’s CD, which includes a step-by-step training guide and presentation slides.