Financial Literacy Project Implementation Plan

For

Enter your school name here

Overview

This financial literacy plan is being created as a vehicle to increase financial literacy at the College, as part of the California Community the College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) effort to increase financial literacy across the entire California Community College System and within the communities in which schools are located.

The CCCCO effort has laid out a number of broad objectives for implementing financial education at the individual school level, to be articulated and executed in Phase One and Phase Twoof this effort, including:

Increasing financial capability for all students enrolled in the system; and,
Reducing student loan default rates; and,
Increasing student success and program completion; and,
Creating a culture of financial competence on each campus.

The CCCCO has also established a series of secondary, Phase Three, outward-looking goals for pursuit by California Community Colleges, once a Phases One and Phase Two financial education plan has been adopted and fully implemented on an individual campus. These Phase Three goals and activities may include:

Partnering with local education agencies and other partners to provide financial education to and increase the financial competency of students enrolled in elementary and secondary schools within the communities our school serves
Partnering with community stakeholders and other partners to provide financial education to and increase the financial competency of citizens who live within the communities our school serves

The purpose of this plan will be to describe, first, the Phase One and Phase Two efforts the College will take to reach the CCCCO goals of increasing the financial capability of all students enrolled at the College; of utilizing financial education strategies and activities to augment the student success goals of the College; and, since the Collegedoes participate in the Federal Direct Loan program, to utilize financial education strategies and activities to reduce the likelihood thatthe College student loan borrowers will default on their the College loans.

Once we have completed the implementation of these Phase One and Phase Two activities, the Collegemay take steps to revise this plan to create a roadmap to implement Phase Three. Our goal is to be in a position to implement Phase Three during 2016. We have laid out a tentative description of our Phase Three implementation later in this document.

Timeline

The initial plan, to be implemented between September 2014 and December 2015, will be divided into several basic sets of activities, as follows:

Phase One: Getting started

In Phase One, which will commence in October 2014, the College will initiate a series of simple steps and activities designed to create a financial literacy presence across our campus. These key activities will include:

create a financial education implementation team;
make use of this written plan for implementing financial education on our campus;
implementing CashCourse and creating strategies to encourage student engagement with CashCourse resources;
identify campus partners who may assist, in the normal course of daily activities, in delivering financial education materials to students;
identify a series key points in the enrollment cycle during which financial education materials will be disseminated to students;
initiate a financial education collaboration with the College’s student success team; and
initiate a financial education collaboration with the College’s default prevention team (where this applies)

Phase Two: Capacity Building and Integration

In Phase Two, which will begin in November 2014 and accelerate in 2015, we will need to take key initial steps in order to create ‘a culture of financial competence’ on our campus. In order to create a ‘culture of financial competence’, the Collegewill take certain steps to build the intellectual capacityto:

Integrate financial education into our classrooms
Conduct financial education workshops and one-on-one counseling for the Collegestudents
Provide training for certain students to become peer-to-peer financial education counselors

Phase Three Financial Education Outreach

Phase three will involve delivering financial education to:

Local education entities
Individuals who live in the communities in which the College is located

In order to implement phase 3 we will first need to create a cadre of certified financial education professionals. We will create this group of trained financial education professionals through the implementation of Phase 2 above. Once we have fully implemented Phase 2, we will revisit Phase 3 and explore how the Collegemight provide useful financial education within our local community.

Enter your school name here

Financial Education Implementation Plan

Phase One

September – December 2014

The following are a series of activities which will enable the College to fully implement Phase One of this plan:

Action Step #1 Creating a Financial Education Implementation Team

The College will, no later than November 1, 2014, create a financial education task force to implement, oversee and manage its financial literacy efforts. This team will perform an executive and management function for the life of the project.

Make-up of our Financial Education Implementation Team:

The College understands that establishing a task force, while not required for a campus-wide financial literacy effort that reflects the CCCCO’s goals, will increase the likelihood that our efforts will be effective and ultimately successful. We have, as stated above, three broad goals: Increase the financial capability of all students, augment efforts to increase student success and support efforts to reduce student loan default. Our efforts to achieve these goals will have to correspondingly broad. Accordingly, we will need a financial education team that will create, execute and monitor the effectiveness of the efforts that reflect our broad goals, drawing participation from the entire campus community, as well as representation from among those specific constituencies which are interested in increased student success and reduced loan default. Our efforts to create a broadly representative team have resulted in the inclusion of faculty, as well as staff from student affairs, academic affairs, financial aid, and management.

Here are the members of our financial literacy task force and the area of institutional operation each represents:

Name

Area of Institutional Representation

Role of Our Financial Education Implementation Team

Our campus-wide financial education team will perform an executive and management function in the financial literacy process, from creating the financial literacy plan for the entire institution to assisting certain key campus stakeholders to devise and implement their own unique financial education efforts.

The team will create an institution-wide financial education strategy, in the form of a written plan, which will address the Chancellor’s and the College’s own financial education objectives. The team may use this document as a template for that plan.

Following are a series of suggested activities that a school should include in a school-level plan:

Action Step #2 Implementing and making use of CashCourse

TheCollege financial education team will take steps make the CashCourse website and its various resources available to all students. The team will have participated in a series of webinars conducted by NEFE’s CashCourse support staff and CCCCO staff and consultants. The webinars will describe:

the steps the College will need to take to gain functional ACCESS to the CashCourse website
how a school can use CashCourse and NEFE resources to PROMOTE CashCourse within the campus community
how a the College can use CashCourse and NEFE resources to SUPPORT the various campus-based financial education activities

The first CashCourse webinar took place on August 28, 2014. A recorded version will be available to schools at. For upcoming CashCourse webinar announcements and sign ups, go here .

NEFE and CashCourse support staff have developed a Financial Education Toolkitcomprised of materials and activities that the College will use to promote CashCourse among out students and which the College will use to support our campus-based financial education activities. The Financial Education Toolkitis attached to our plan as a resource.

Selecting relevant information included in the attached Financial Education Toolkit, as well as suggestions made at the CashCourse website and information provided during the NEFE staff webinar, we have identified a series of steps we will take beginning in the Fall of 2014 to promote Cashcourse among the College students. Here are the steps we will be taking:

Activity

Description

Workshop Kits / PowerPoint presentations and facilitators guides for ten topics
Marketing Templates / Fliers, posters, ads, bookmarks.
Twitter and Facebook Posts / 100 pre-composed social media posts.
CashCourse Challenge / Three versions of online scavenger hunts.
Assignments / Student assignments, track their participation and scores.
CashCourse Connection / monthly e-newsletter with updates, resources and ways to promote financial literacy
Other

To be completed subsequent to the webinar discussing how to promote CashCourse.

Action Step #3 Leveraging Scheduled Events

The team will create a strategy to make financial education materials and experiences available to all students at key points in the general enrollment cycle. The team has met and chosen ‘delivery points’ and materials to be delivered, the time and place in which the intervention will occur, and has assigned responsibility for execution to faculty and/or staff (or office) to carry out the task. The team has arranged for each responsible person to report back to the team on a monthly basis, advising whether the schedule dissemination occurred and when, how many students received information, and whether the intervention occurred as planned and advising whether adjustments may need to be made to increase effectiveness. The following is a list of those ‘delivery opportunities’ that theCollege team will leverage during the 2014-2015 school year to ‘push’ financial education information to students, together with the name of the person responsible and the date of the activity:

Activity

Person Responsible

Date(s) of activity

Toolkit Material Used

Application
Admissions
Orientation
Disbursement of funds
Registration
Placement on Academic Probation
Entrance Counseling
Exit Counseling
Other

Note: NEFE has provided, as part of the “Financial Education Toolkit”,financial education materials that the Team will utilize to meet this objective.

Action Step #4 Seeking out and Collaborating with Campus Partners

To assist in increasing the financial capability of all students enrolled in the school, the Collegefinancial education team is exploring ways to integrate financial education materials and experiences into many routinely occurring interactions between students and school staff. In this regard, the financial education team is building relationships with key campus allies and partners that present opportunities to reach student populations that could benefit from financial education. Here is a list of campus partners that have already expressed a willingness to assist in the delivery of financial education to students during routine operation:

Partner

Contact Person

Material Used from Toolkit

FA Office
Academic affairs (probation)
Academic Counseling Office
Personal Counseling
EOPS/Care
DSPS
Foster Youth Services
Veterans Services
CalWORKs
Student Support Services
Academic Support/Advisement Center
Career Development Office
Trio
Remedial Education

The financial education team has taken the following steps to move this process forward:

Established contacts within each of these potential office/partners
Scheduled a first meeting to discuss the goal of collaboration, including the importance of broad campus participation in this effort and the value of including available financial education materials in the potential partner’s specific areas of activity
Exploring, with each campus partner, what information could be delivered to students, when and how financial education material would be delivered to students, and how to integrate available financial education materials into their regular tasks
Once identified, the Team will covey the selected financial education materials to the office involved
The team has established a process enabling these campus partners to provide the team with periodic feedback about the dissemination of materials. This will allow the financial education team to know that the goals of this task are being met; and if not, to initiate discussions about how to adjust dissemination strategies to meet overall objectives. Each campus partner will report back to the team on a monthly basis, indicating the number of students who received information during that month. Our partners will use this monthly reporting to comment on the continuing usefulness of this effort and whether adjustments need to be made

Action Step #5 Collaborating with Student Success Team

The team has established a collaborative relationship with those individuals on campus who are tasked with increasing student success. Research suggests that community college students frequently drop out because of financial worries and/or real financial problems. Financial education can be an effective tool to reduce the likelihood that students will drop out for this reason and instead increase the likelihood that students will stay in school long enough to complete work on an academic program. The team’s goal is to establish a conversation with the student success team to explore how the financial education team’s inventory of financial education resources (materials and experiences) can be utilized to assist the student success team to meet its twin objectives of increased retention and increased program completion. The following steps are planned for the Fallof 2014:

The Financial Education Team will schedule a meeting with student success team during the Fall of 2014. The goal of this meeting is to discuss how financial education materials might be used to help the student success group achieve its goals.
The student success team, with the assistance of the financial education team, will develop a strategy to deliver financial education to the students served by the student success team. This will include the identification of appropriate financial education materials from the Toolkit.
The financial education team will assist to make sure that the necessary interventions actually occur in the way planned, especially in cases in which other faculty and staff will be needed to participate
The student success team will provide to the financial education team a monthly update about the number of students receiving financial education materials.
The two teams willschedule a monthly meeting through August 2015 to review the efficacy of the strategy and make changes as necessary.

Action Step #6 Collaborating with Default Prevention team (if applicable)

During the Fall of 2014 the financial education team will take steps to established a collaborative relationship with those individuals on campus who are tasked with reducing student loan default. Financial education can be an effective tool to reduce the likelihood that students will default on student loans. The team’s goal is to establish collaboration with theCollege default prevention team to explore how the financial education team’s inventory of financial education resources (Toolkit) can be utilized to assist the default prevention team to meet its objective of reducing student loan default among the college borrowers. The following steps are planned during Fall 2014:

The Financial Education Team will schedule a meeting with the default prevention team during the Fall of 2014. The goal of this meeting is to discuss how financial education materials might be used to help the default prevention team to achieve its goals.
The default prevention team, with the assistance of the financial education team, will develop a strategyto deliver financial education to the students served by the default prevention team. This will include the identification of appropriate financial educational resources from the Toolkit
The financial education team will assist to make sure that the necessary interventions actually occur in the way planned, especially in cases in which other faculty and staff will be needed to achieve the goals of the effort
The default prevention team will provide to the Financial Education team a monthly update about the number of students receiving financial education materials.
The two teams will schedule a monthly meeting through August 2015 to review the efficacy of the strategy and make changes as necessary.