April 17, 2008 - Boston, MA - Decision Partners, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, today announced a new program designed to assist students experiencing high levels of financial stress. The Student Financial Security Support Program will be integrated into the Financial Literacy 101 online course and is available to all higher education institutions.
The program seeks to address a major problem experienced by schools seeking to identify and support students experiencing financial difficulties - delivering help before a "problem" becomes a "crisis". Starting in the fall semester of 2008, Decision Partners will implement a methodology for screening and assisting students who are not only experiencing acute financial stress, but who may also be at above average risk for developing financial problems while in college based on a number of variables well correlated with student persistence and successful financial management.
Students taking Financial Literacy 101 will answer a new battery of survey questions designed to quantify levels of financial stress, including the desire to speak with someone immediately about financial issues. These data will be evaluated in conjunction with other data supplied by the student to yield a personalized Financial Security Score, an objective non-judgmental measure of financial security. The score will be revealed to students during the Financial Literacy 101 course experience, along with text about how to understand their score. Student responses to individual questions are completely confidential and are not shared with schools except in aggregate form.
If a student's Financial Security Score is lower than a range specified by their university, the student will be asked to consider seeking help from on-campus resources, which will be described within the course and will include complete contact information. By enabling schools to set their own thresholds for intervention, the program allows schools to maximize the impact of existing resources.
Why quantify financial security? While some level of stress is a near universal part of the student experience, financial stress is unique in its negative influence on student success and retention. In the past, schools had few ways of identifying students experiencing problems until after poor performance occurred. With this new program, schools can reach students earlier, leading to better outcomes for both the student and the institution.
"From the time we made our financial literacy course available to the university community, a significant percentage of customers began to use it as a required intervention for students on academic probation, which they frequently correlated with poor financial management," said Austin Jackson, CEO of Decision Partners. "This program offers a unique type of insight that we hope will lead to earlier interventions and, ultimately, to fewer worst-case scenarios in which students leave school or suffer other negative consequences for financial reasons."
This new program will become an integral part of the learning model implemented in Financial Literacy 101 - a model that seeks to not only build "awareness" of financial literacy concepts, but to also prevent behaviors that often lead to financial problems. By using proven prevention strategies such as expectancy challenges and personalized feedback in conjunction with a robust financial literacy curriculum, the course moves beyond simply providing information and becomes a highly personalized, even transformative, learning experience. The course treats students as adults, without resorting to ineffective lecturing or scare tactics, and encourages students to consider protective behaviors that will contribute to their personal financial goals. In fact, post-course surveys demonstrate that students appreciate this unique approach with over 90% of participants stating they would recommend the course to a friend.
Each school using Financial Literacy 101 will also receive aggregate Financial Security Scores for selected student cohorts, which will offer an objective insight into the financial stress level of their student population. The aggregate score will allow schools to measure specific challenges they face in their financial education efforts and may be used in conjunction with the annual data report provided by Decision Partners to better target resources. Further, when used with student ID numbers, Financial Security Scores offer another metric for analyzing retention efforts on a longitudinal basis.
For more information, please contact Jim Pfeiffer, Decision Partners' VP of Customer Development, at jim@decisionpartners.org or by phone at (978) 562-1390.
Posted 04/17/08 to www.NASFAA.org. Posting of press releases is done as a service to Members and does not imply endorsement or support by NASFAA. NASFAA does not review this information for content or accuracy.
