Florida athletes can now profit from their name, image, and likeness. As a result of that new law, college athletes in the state must complete a financial literacy course.
Now, Florida State University has launched an online hub of financial tools to help ALL students be successful.
“We have articles about the value of higher education not being as great as it used to be, but it's still probably the best investment you can make in your life,” says FSU Associate Provost Rick Burnette, who led the project.
“FSU has continuously expanded its student success efforts to prepare students to navigate the college experience and successfully transition to their post-graduation life, and financial success is an essential part of that.”
Financialsuccess.fsu.edu features resources related to paying for college, planning and budgeting, banking and credit, investments, and insurance and taxes. It provides information about financial literacy courses and training programs.
“We wanted to create one place they can go to gain these important life skills and insights,” says Provost Sally McRorie, who sponsored the project. “It doesn’t matter how much information we have for our students if they can’t find it.”
The hub features easy access to financial literacy “badge” programs that allow students to document what they learn from these courses for future employers.
For example, “Live Well Financially” is a badge course offered by the Center for Health Advocacy and Wellness as part of the Live Well FSU program. It covers creating a budget, needs versus wants, credit card usage, and more.
The Career Center offers “Fiscally Fit” and “ProfessioNole Ready” badges to increase financial literacy and develop career skills.
The hub also provides information from the offices of Financial Aid and Student Business Services on paying for college and securing financial aid, scholarships, grants and loans.
Javier Cuevas, a freshman from Tampa, worked with Burnette on the project as part of the InternFSU program. Cuevas researched the top financial literacy programs in the nation, organized the information into topical areas and mocked up the original designs of the website. He collaborated with the project leads for each topic and assisted University Communications in curating the content for presentation on the website.
“This project would not have been completed as quickly without Javi’s project management, design and editing skills,” says Myrna Hoover, director of the Career Center, which oversees the InternFSU program. “The project also provided Javi a tangible work artifact to showcase his skills to future employers.”
Cuevas said the project was an excellent hands-on way to learn skills relevant to his career goals.
“My interest in the project management aspect of the internship gave me an idea of what I would like to pursue after college, and I can now focus on taking the proper steps in my education to enter the field,” he said.
Anna Prentiss with University Communications contributed to this report.
