Texas Tech University wants to help its students to leave school armed with financial knowledge. That led the Department of Human Sciences in 2013 to develop a Personal Finance Program. Last month in Norfolk, Virginia, the program earned the 2018 Outstanding Educational Program Award from the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education.
Program assistant director Jennifer Wilson says Tech students come into introductory courses in the program, known as PFI, very unaware.
“We’ve provided, not only an introductory course, because once they get into that course and realize there’s so much more they need to learn before they graduate. They seem to fall in love with that course and then we get a lot of great return for those who continue on and take a minor in the personal finance courses,” Wilson says.
The program is separate from the degree plan in Personal Financial Planning. Students can minor in the PFI program or can just choose elective courses to gain a better working knowledge of finances to arm themselves. One of the more popular courses is named “Life, Love and Money.”
Texas Tech senior Michela Palmer of Houston was like a lot of students, initially not knowing what exactly she wanted to major in. She starts a job with Merrill-Lynch in Austin soon after deciding to be a personal financial planner.
“As freshman, students often find out, what they intended to do once they came into college is not at all what ends up happening. I transferred into the university’s studies program, through the college of human sciences and you choose concentrations and one of my concentrations was the personal finance minor. I took the intro course on campus and some of the minor classes and I just fell in love with the program and the faculty. So, I transferred into the degree program,” Palmer explains.
The university launched the program in spring of 2013. Its mission is encouragement, engagement, and evaluation.
“I kind of had this vision of helping students become financially literate before they graduate. So, it’s providing an opportunity for students to have more financial resources while they’re here at Tech, connect them to other financial resources that are here on campus that they can learn about. But most importantly, just to help them become financially aware of what’s going to happen right after graduation and get them set up for success,” Wilson says.
Wilson says that what’s taught in the PFI program’s classes and the tools gained isn’t strictly from a textbook.
“First it’s identifying what types of credit cards should I be looking at. What are the key things that I should be looking at? What is the main reason behind it? What type of student loans do I have? How do I need to tackle that right after graduation?”
Palmer says every student needs tools to navigate an adult world of finances – including how to fix bad credit.
“Once you get into the real world, if you do something financially without understanding the consequences, for example opening up a credit card and taking out a lot of credit without really understanding what it means when you don’t pay off your credit card bill every month and then you go try and make a big purchase and you can’t because your credit is bad.”