Understanding personal finances and budgets isn’t always part of the curriculum in college. But those practical lessons are so valuable, Morris Brown College has opted to introduce a program designed to sharpen those skills before students are out on their own.
The Atlanta school is part of the Our Money Matters financial wellness initiative launched through the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Community Development Action. Underwritten by a $5.6 million commitment from the Wells Fargo Foundation, the program aims to improve the future economic success of about 40,000 students of color across the U.S. by providing them with the tools to manage personal finances and student loans. They’ll also have access to a range of support services, including emergency financial assistance. The long-range goal is to give students opportunities to build generational wealth and close the racial wealth divide.
“The focus is to do that through providing financial education,” said Temple Jackson, the program manager. “When we looked at the best places to go about it, we focused on minority-serving institutions such as the HBCUs.”
At Morris Brown, the program began online last year but has shifted into high gear now that school is back in session. A customized platform gives students access to various educational elements as well as connections to resources such as food pantries, clothing closets, financial assistance and other support networks to help them complete their educations.
“We customized the platform to include things such as how to fill out a FASFA form, how the admission process works, how to maintain good academic progress,” said Jackson, who will also organize workshops around topics on the platform that pique students’ interest. “If we see a lot of them looking at ‘Creating a Budget and Sticking to It,’ we’ll do a workshop on that.”
A partner in the project is iGrad, a financial literacy program that has paired with numerous universities around the country. The company’s research has shown that minority students often wind up having a lot of college debt.
“And when they graduate, they also cannot find gainful employment to address that debt,” said Temple. “The tools on our platform will help them through their academic careers with free information on scholarships, a job/internship search engine and a resume review program. If a student can get a scholarship, lower their student loan bill, get a resume reviewed then get a job, it will assist with them with graduating without a large amount of debt, and that helps address the racial wealth gap.”
The program is also available to alumni, faculty and staff, and it reaches beyond the Morris Brown campus into the community as well, said Jackson. “We want to create economic development from within to provide students and the community with financial information so we can build up the community as well. That way when students graduate, they won’t have to move out to other communities; the existing ones will be able to support them.”
Information about Morris Brown is online at morrisbrown.edu. Details about Our Money Matters can be found at our-money-matters.org.
SEND US YOUR STORIES. Each week we look at programs, projects and successful endeavors at area schools, from pre-K to grad school. To suggest a story, contact H.M. Cauley at hm_cauley@yahoo.com or 770-744-3042.
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