Student Financial Services last month extended an invitation to the entire university community to join SALT, a free membership program developed by the non-profit group American Student Assistance (ASA) to help students take control of their money and manage student loans.
SALT serves as a financial literacy and budgeting tool for current students and alumni up to three years out of school, according to Associate Director of Financial Aid Sheila Hoffstedt.
ASA created the SALT program, named after the earliest form of currency, after noticing the ongoing trend of rising student debt. ASA aims to provide a free program that encourages smart financial decisions, according to ASA Director of Marketing Aimee O'Brien-Jeyarajan.
"We don't believe a student should have to pay for these services, and it really is designed to be a money coach for students that are in school who do have loans and those who don't take out loans, as well as alumni," O'Brien-Jeyarajan told the Daily. "It's designed to help them take control of their money."
O'Brien-Jeyarajan noted that many students do not realize the significance of signing a student loan agreement and feel overwhelmed upon graduating.
"What we want to do is to start to help students speak about money, take control of their money, and make smart financial decisions from the beginning through all the transitions that they have," she said. "And to do that, the SALT tool is designed to be simple, useful and motivating."
The SALT website features tools to help keep track of student loans and budget personal spending money, provides tips on saving money and customizes searches for scholarships or internships. The website offers rewards to students who frequent the site, including a free MP3 download, according to O'Brien-Jeyarajan.
"The navigation of the web tool is built around three principles -- do, learn, and then be rewarded for it," she said. "One of the prime pieces [is that] when a student goes in and activates the registration they have the option of importing student loans, so if they have student loans on record they can click a button and it will all be imported into a dashboard for them."
SALT also offers a tool that helps students evaluate the cost of living in different regions of the country and plans out a tentative monthly budget based on estimated income, Associate Director of Financial Aid Amy Piantedosi said.
"If you plan on moving somewhere when you graduate, you can put in the city and it will tell you the cost of living, or what rent might be somewhere else, and how your loans factor into that," she said.
"I think the generic programs out there, like mint.com, are good, but SALT offers those kinds of things and is also loan-specific for each student so they can kind of customize it, and I think that's a really good aspect of it too," Hoffstedt said.
O'Brien-Jeyarajan emphasized that SALT is not only a web tool but also offers phone counseling to students. Over 100 representatives are available to answer students' financial budgeting questions.
"The biggest piece of what I think makes ASA so unique is that you have access to phone counselors where you can physically call here and start to walk through with a live person what are some of the decisions you are trying to make or what are some of the options you could be doing," she said.
Hoffstedt and Piantedosi reported that Student Financial Services expected a high number of students to register for SALT but noted that the program is still in its launch phase.
"When we first sent out the initial email, 30 percent clicked the email open. The actual return of students registering was less than four percent, which we thought was low, but according to how those kind of things work, marketing said it was good," Piantedosi said.
"Anything above three percent is considered a really great rate of return. We're hoping that our next go-around will be at least four percent."
Student Financial Services held its first financial literacy session on Monday and will hold two more in Dowling Hall tomorrow and on Monday.
"We're having financial literacy sessions that are not necessarily directed specifically about SALT, but students will be able to come and sign up if they want to participate, and there's going to be somebody from ASA ... and they'll get general kinds of information about loan repayment [and] also the opportunity to sign up [for SALT]," Hoffstedt said.
