Expanding Financial Wellness Clinic

The Financial Wellness Clinic (FWC) is an on campus financial planning office staffed by one Certified Financial Planning (CFP®) Professional and four finance major students at CSU, Chico.

The Intent: This program offers free and holistic financial planning sessions to student clients, focusing especially on underserved students who identify as low income, housing insecure, part of a minority population, or a member of one of our campus’sstudent support programs. The clinic staff hold daily drop-in hours and schedule appointments to meet with students, listening to their concerns, helping to prepare a budget, counseling on debt and credit, and providing next steps to help student clients implement corrective actions.

Methods: The FWC is different from other typical financial literacy interventions in that we have a CFP® Professional on staff to answer any financial planning questions that arise, including tax information, insurance, and investment questions. Advising is tailored to the student specifically. In addition to our CFP® Professional on staff, we have partnered with the Foundation for Financial Planning (FFFP) to bring in more CFP volunteers to support our clients. To date, four CFPs have volunteered to meet with clients.

Our campus’s student support programs refer students to the FWC regularly. Approximately 65% of our visitors are referred to us from Basic Needs, EOP, PATH Scholars, Student Learning Center, Financial Aid, or another student support program. In partnership with our campus’s Basic Needs program, students seeking grant funding are referred to create a budget plan with our staff before they can receive financial assistance from Basic Needs.

Impact: The FWC has seen over 600 visitors to date and has addressed concerns from high debt levels, to tax burdens, credit repair, identity theft, and much more. Students who were previously debating dropping out of school or filing for bankruptcy are now able to manage their budgets and graduate on time.

Scale: With the use of technology, this program can be scaled to all CSU campuses, and managed centrally, allowing students from any CSU campus to book appointments with para-planner staff and CFPs from any location within the state. Robust training systems are already available through the FFFP and Kaplan Financial.