The purpose of the Florida A&M Student Financial Education (FAMU SFE) Program is to train and mentor graduate students to conduct research in the areas of financial literacy, debt management, paying for college, and financial decision-making within minority and low-income communities, while educating graduate and undergraduate students on the aforementioned topics through the use of seminars, workshops, publications, and programs. The FAMU SFE Program will provide financial decision-making activities, including paying for college and managing student loan debt, to FAMU’s graduate and undergraduate students.

Project plan and activities:

Program informational pamphlets, calculators, and t-shirts will be distributed to participants to raise and reinforce the awareness of the program. Students will also be reached through social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and FAMU’s radio and TV stations.

The evaluations, assessments, written program curriculum, and best practices from each year will be posted on the new FAMU SFE website, and used to strengthen and replicate the activities in different settings to assess the replication of the findings in other student and community settings.

The program will use multi-media formats such as YouTube, PowerPoint, and web-based information online and via Blackboard to deliver educational workshops and financial coaching sessions. Additionally, the FAMU SFE Program will develop and deliver a train-the-trainer financial decision-making education program that can be delivered to graduate and undergraduate student populations in the future. A graduate student from each of the Business Administration, Counseling Education, and Community Psychology programs will work with faculty members to assist staff from the FAMU Small Business Development Center (SBDC) to deliver the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) financial education program in the SFE seminars and workshops. Financial decision-making seminars will focus on financial literacy, debt management, and paying for college, and will be available each fall and spring semester for FAMU students.

FAMU faculty and SFE fellows (the graduate student mentees) will present and publish FAMU SFE research findings, while providing others the opportunity to replicate and extend the research.