Morgan-Alysse Black
Lantern Staff
The Financial Aid Office will host a financial literacy event on Thursday, Oct. 7 at 4 p.m. in the L.W. Nixon Library. The event will cover federal work study as well as on-campus job opportunities, according to Financial Aid Counselor Callie Johnson. In addition, Johnson will discuss Career Service opportunities such as the career fair, internships, resume building, Handshake, Career Coach and workforce partnerships.
Katie Kern, a Financial Aid counselor, originally started the monthly Financial Literacy events in 2017 as a way for students to have an open discussion and a place to learn some financial literacy skills. Their goal is to have a 20-minute presentation going over a topic that students have asked to learn more about.
“I hope to help students make smart decisions now, so they have an idea of how that can impact their life later on,” Debbie Reiter, Financial Aid verification specialist, said.
The office want students to succeed not only in their classes at Butler, but also after Butler and many of these short presentations give them the information they did not even realize they were missing out on. Currently, their topics cover student loan borrowing, student loan repayment, building credit, preventing identity theft, budgeting, file tax returns and career services. In the past, they have also had a presentation over investing basics.
The Financial Aid office takes feedback from these events to cover topics students want to learn more about.
“We want our students to borrow wisely and know their options when it comes to loan repayment, but we also want them to be financially stable and know how to obtain that goal as that leads to higher retention/completion rates at Butler as well as a lower default rate on Federal Student Loans,” Kern said. “Currently, we have a link on our Financial Aid web page for our current school year Financial Literacy events, and we usually have digital signage and posters around campus. We have recently teamed up with SGA(Student Government Association) to provide a gift card give-away at each event along with we usually have some type of food or goodies.”
If you have any questions or need anything further please reach out to either Kern or Reiter in their offices: on the El Dorado campus in the 600 building or email: finaid@butlercc.edu.
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