“We’ve partnered with counseling psychology doctoral student Paolo M. Hernandez Barón to create a consultant role to train our peer team to provide them with tools to consider how financial situations affect stress, anxiety, health, and overall well-being,†says Morgan McMillan, assistant director of financial literacy at Indiana University.
“I’ve seen students come in agitated, angry, very stressed, or not understanding their student loans. The peer mentors do a phenomenal job and students leave the office no longer agitated and thanking them. We’ve worked hard to teach our mentors that they can’t treat everybody the same, and that they have to figure out each individual,†says St. Catherine’s Czech.
A Growing Movement
St. Catherine is one of a growing number of colleges and universities across the country offering peer-to-peer financial mentoring.
In 2009, The White House Initiative on HBCUs selected Morgan State to partner with the FDIC and offer its Money Smart financial education curriculum, using 16 peer ambassadors to train and engage students in financial literacy workshops.
Phil Schuman is the co-chair of the National Summit for Collegiate Financial Wellness, which has a stated mission “to unite educators with a passion for student financial wellness, regardless of their functional areas of work within higher education.â€
In 2014, Schuman and Bryan Ashton, assistant director within the Student Wellness Center at The Ohio State University, overseeing financial education and outreach efforts, started the national summit due to “the rapid growth in people trying to put financial education programs into their institutions, and thought it would be good to share best practices,†says Schuman, also the director of financial literacy at Indiana University – one of the major players in the peer-to-peer money mentoring space.
“There aren’t hard numbers on how many schools are focusing on financial literacy and the peer-to-peer aspect, but in the first year of the conference we had 160 people from 110 institutions, and in our second year there were 210 people from 130 institutions. We’re very excited as we gear up for our third conference at Ohio State in June,†he adds.
That’s What Friends are For
If you have a child or loved one in college, you should encourage them to go to their student aid office and see if the school offers financial literacy support or has a peer-to-peer program. You can go to the National Summit for Collegiate Financial Wellness website at www.nscfw.org for more information.
Jones says the most important things she learned from Danforth about the importance of having a ‘financial buddy’ were:
The Need for a Support System: “Many people have issues with things like money that they never had to deal with until college. Having Tiana helped me take action and make positive changes in my behavior.â€
Self-Esteem: “I do feel better about my financial situation and everything since Tiana has helped me. With this confidence I plan ahead and have gotten a jump on so many things.â€
Better Outcomes: “It’s important to have a mentor/friend so that you’re not waiting along, not knowing what to do until that very minute when it’s too late to do anything about the situation.â€