Are you having difficulty finding useful debt management education that doesn’t also promote a lender’s loan program? That’s what we’ve heard from many schools, and to remedy the situation, T.H.E. has developed “Smart Choices,” a financial literacy series. With “Smart Choices,” you can provide your students with resources for better debt management that are lender-neutral, educational and interactive.
Lender-Neutral
All materials in the “Smart Choices” series have been reviewed to make sure the content is:
- Educational: Strictly for the purpose of giving students practical information about their financial choices so they can make the best decision for their own situation.
- Unbiased: We are not selling T.H.E. or its products, directly or indirectly, in any materials bearing the lender-neutral stamp.
- Safe from scrutiny: This stamp offers a sense of security for you and your staff, that you are not influencing student choices with lender “marketing.”
Educational
The series offers a wide range of additional materials that your students can use to understand the most important elements of borrowing, credit, and repayment, including:
- Blue Skies: A Quick Guide to Smart Borrowing
- Solid Ground: Understanding the Long-Term Impact of Good Credit
- Smooth Sailing: How to Create and Navigate a Real-World Budget
- Evaluating a Lender
- Entrance, exit and debt management presentations
Some of the “Smart Choices” materials may look familiar, such as our popular Blue Skies brochure that gives students a general overview of borrowing and avoiding many mistakes borrowers make.
One new addition is the Evaluating a Lender brochure, which gives your students the knowledge they need to select the right lender. Students can use Evaluating a Lender to:
- Understand the differences and similarities between lenders
- Ask potential lenders the right questions
- Find additional resources to understand the student loan industry
Interactive
On September 4, we launched an online tutorial called Quick Guide to Smart Borrowing. Students can use the five-minute tutorial, based on our Blue Skies brochure, to evaluate lenders, borrow less and save thousands in repayment. Additional tutorials will be online in the coming months.
To provide you with another online forum, T.H.E. has joined Mapping Your Future®, a national collaborative, public-service organization providing financial literacy to students, families and schools. Getting set up only takes a few minutes. Once you’re signed up, you can use Mapping Your Future’s Online Student Loan Counseling (OSLC) to meet federal loan counseling requirements and help borrowers understand their obligations.
To sign up for OSLC:
- Complete the school sign-up form at mapping-your-future.org
- The school sign-up form is then sent to Mapping Your Future’s Customer Service and Project Coordinator
- Get the word out to your students to complete counseling through OSLC
To learn more, go to the website. The site also offers training for first-time users of OSLC.
Our corporate presenters, Joe and Erin, are also members of Mapping Your Future and can help you with any issues you may have with this tool.
Additional Resources
If you want additional resources to help your students better understand the borrowing process, our knowledgeable corporate presenters are available for campus visits. Erin and Joe cover everything from entrance and exit sessions to highly customized budgeting and debt management sessions. They will provide your students with practical information to make smart decisions about paying for school and free up some precious time in your workday to accomplish more things.
Like our lender-neutral “Smart Choices” series, Erin and Joe are fully committed to our unbiased approach to borrower education.
Ordering Made Easy
To order any of the “Smart Choices” materials, just go to our Tools and Resources page and enter your order. Once the e-mail automatically generates, simply provide the name of the resource(s), the quantity desired, due date, shipping address and contact information. We’ll do the rest.
Find the complete timeline of resources, available for download or ordering, on our web site.