UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - IRVINE

The financial aid department at the University of California–Irvine (UCI) integrated CashCourse on its campus so successfully that it ranks in NEFE’s top 20 schools for traffic in 2010. UCI has taken a few simple steps to spread the word about CashCourse. For starters, while many schools push information about CashCourse both before and at the beginning of the fall semester, UCI takes a different approach. The university primarily spreads the word from April through November during a time it calls the “outreach period.”

During the outreach period, UCI includes information about CashCourse in presentations to prospective students at high schools and the university. Additionally, the school presents slides about CashCourse in parental information sessions. During these sessions, UCI tells parents about different choices they have for college expenses, such as whether to buy new or used books. UCI then directs parents to the CashCourse Budget Wizard for help. Christopher Shultz, director of the office of financial aid and scholarships, says that parents are very receptive to this information and he’s confident that many tell their students about CashCourse.

Year-round, UCI continually exposes students to CashCourse through a link on the financial aid office home page. In addition, the financial aid office includes CashCourse slides in the information screen in its waiting room.

Shultz plans to share the news of the success of UCI's CashCourse website during an upcoming staff meeting, in hopes that it will increase staff involvement in the CashCourse program at UCI.

You can get parents involved in sharing CashCourse with their students by using the CashCourse workshop kit, “Parents: Helping Your Student Succeed Financially in College.” Find this and nine other workshop kits in the School Administration section under Resources at www.cashcourse.org/login.