Recently, we teamed up University of Surrey to survey 1,917 students on their financial expectations of university and overall spending habits.
The results highlighted several key issues facing universities today. In particular that:
Evidently, more needs to be done to educate pre-arrival stage students on the cost of university. As well as the growing need for robust education on budgeting, alongside tools to improve the efficacy of budgeting among students.
Introducing Money-Ready for University
With the experience gained from from the tens of thousands of students who positively engage with our financial education, we began developing a digital-learning solution to help universities target these issues specifically.
And – after months of hard work – we’re hugely proud to announce or newest service, Money-Ready for University!
Money-Ready for University (MRU) is designed to empower Outreach and Admissions teams to enhance a university’s support for prospective and pre-entry stage students. The three core aims of the service are to:
- Demystify the student funding process
- Promote the financial case for attending university
- Involve parents and guardians in university preparation
MRU has learning pathways and a loan calculator tool to help prospective students understand the true cost of university (while still presenting a positive case for higher education).
It also provides students with an easy-to-use budget calculator to support them to be more effective in their budgeting from the moment they onboard.
Universities using MRU also have access analytics on individual students so you can measure the impact that your support has, whilst being in the best position to help before a crisis develops. The service inclusion of MRU is as follows:
How universities use Money-Ready for Uni
Universities can integrate MRU across multiple areas of support, including:
- Outreach work with feeder schools and colleges – support your community partners by providing access to pre-university learning. Blackbullion is OFFA Accountable.
- Open Days for prospective students and parents – introduce key financial information at the right time.
Admissions and onboarding of the incoming cohort to prepare them for success by getting them to develop the money skills they need to transition - Targeted support for defined cohorts in need of support i.e. Care Leavers.
- Pro-active engagement that extends your reach campus wide beyond normal staff capacity with scalable technology that puts students in control of their learning.
- Pastoral support networks – equip staff & peer-to-peer networks with an educational tool they can share when they’re faced with students who have money worries.
- Student Union / Associations – welfare and education campaigns have the opportunity to pro-actively support the mission of the university.
If you work in a university and want to get your students money-ready before they arrive on campus, you can contact our Head of Partnerships for an introductory discussion. Or you can find out more here.
