SAN DIEGO--iGrad, a San Diego-based financial wellness solutions company, has partnered with Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas to provide its customized, interactive online and mobile student financial wellness platform to the public four-year university’s nearly 11,000 students.

iGrad’s platform at Angelo State includes comprehensive customized and interactive information on everything from building and maintaining good credit, budgeting and money management to student loan/debt management and loan calculators. 

Multiple studies have shown that financially literate college students are more likely to graduate, perform better academically, experience less stress, have lower student loan debt, be more prepared for student loan payments after graduation, and more. 

“Our hope is by providing a resource like iGrad, our students will achieve improved financial wellness and we will see a direct impact on their overall wellbeing,” said Christabel Romine, director of Angelo State’s Lambs to Rams student financial wellness program. 

Angelo State, which is part of the Texas Tech University System, has a diverse student population with a wide range of financial knowledge and needs, she said.

“We wanted an interactive online platform that our students could access easily and that provided them with a thorough education on personal finance topics.” Romine said. “iGrad provides courses, tools, webinars and articles on a flexible platform that adapts to any student’s needs.”

iGrad provides artificial intelligence-powered financial wellness solutions to more than 2.7 million students at 650 colleges and universities, over 20,000 employers and more than 300 financial institutions. It is used by public and private colleges and universities of all sizes, including Wake Forest University, University of North Georgia, Indiana University Online, Emerson College and Cleveland State University.

Using artificial intelligence and proprietary algorithms, iGrad personalizes financial information for each student’s situation and needs, offering: 

  • Tools, quizzes, videos, articles and a library of multimedia content
  • A student loan tracking tool which aggregates student loan balances and estimates monthly payments, helping to prepare students for these payments after graduation
  • Because it adapts to each user’s specific circumstances, iGrad can even provide interactive educational content on retirement and mortgages to those who need it.

Financial literacy is the ability to understand and effectively use various financial skills, including personal financial management, budgeting and investing. Financially literate people have a feeling of control over their finances while also using money as a tool to freely make choices that build greater life satisfaction.1

Bolstering student financial literacy has become a priority for many colleges and universities, which have been experiencing enrollment declines for years2 – attributed at least in part to tuition costs and the prospect of student loans. 

Research shows that current college students are lacking in financial literacy: One in five don’t know how much student loan debt they’ll have upon graduation and the nearly half who know the total amount of debt don’t know what their monthly payment will be.3

“Students, colleges and universities are facing tremendous financial challenges that impact enrollment, graduation rates and the level of student loan debt, which is already the second-largest category of debt in the country,” said iGrad Vice President of Business Development for Enrich Todd Woodlee. “We are excited to be a key part of Angelo State University’s Lambs to Rams financial wellness initiative.”

For more information about the iGrad platform, visit https://www.igradfinancialwellness.com. For more information about the Enrich platform for employers and financial institutions, visit http://www.enrich.org.

 

 

1 - https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201501_cfpb_report_financial-well-being.pdf

2 - https://nscresearchcenter.org/current-term-enrollment-estimates/

3 - https://reports.collegepulse.com/financial-wellness