CFEE Guidebook

6 BUILDING FINANCIAL CAPABILITY THROUGH FINANCIAL COACHING seek solutions for cost-effective interventions to meet the financial and economic needs of all students in our diverse population. If community colleges are going to prepare students for a new, post-COVID-19 world, we must together think strategically about the resources that help students become financially literate and able to navigate our changing economic environment. How Can Colleges Take Action? Nearly every effective program starts with one or more college leaders who champion a belief in student financial health. Support for funding and programming needs to commence with vision and strategy by decision makers at the top of an institution. However, given the challenges presented by tight budgets and administrative structures, colleges can gain the most traction by exploring ways to introduce financial coaching into services they are already providing, such as financial aid, career advising, and workforce development programs. Financial coaching has been shown to work best if it is not a stand-alone service but is coordinated with other student services offered on campus. As we will discuss further in this Guide, students who are financially vulnerable or at-risk typically have a host of economic needs that all affect each other, such as hous- ing, healthcare, or childcare. Financial coach- ing is uniquely structured to help students address these interconnected issues because of the customized help that each student receives. We challenge all community colleges to reimagine the possibilities for strategies and programs that empower students to achieve fi- nancial health. By sharing the experiences and lessons learned from our program, we call for other institutions to include financial coaching as a critical part of a strategy to help students succeed in college and build a healthy financial future. We invite you to follow the examples and recommendations in this Guide to build and implement your own success strategies. Supporting the Community College Mission Financial coaching has significant benefits that align strongly with the goals of educational advancement and positive social impact that community colleges are committed to achieving. These benefits, which are discussed below, are evident in four key areas: supporting persistence to graduation; fostering economic mobility; supporting career development; and increasing economic integration of the immi- grant community. Supporting Persistence to Graduation Community colleges are well aware of the ways in which financial challenges become obstacles to graduation for students. As documented by research studies, the population of students served by community colleges is typically more financially fragile and at higher risk of dropping out of college than counterparts in four-year institutions. This is partly because low-income and underserved students do not always have the information to make appropriate decisions about paying for college or managing their per- sonal finances. This may lead to lack of emer- gency savings, excessive amounts of debt, or other circumstances that can disrupt a student’s ability to continue in school on a temporary or permanent basis. In fact, students who drop out of college are more likely to do so for financial reasons rather than academic ones. 1 Participants in our program have shown how financial coaching helped them stay in school by simply having an emergency fund. Albert, a criminal justice major who worked with a coach for an entire year, was proud to