Release date: 18-Mar-05
Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Emory Students Teach Peers About Debt Management

Several Emory University students, some of them reformed spenders themselves, are helping their peers fight the urge to spend, spend, spend by teaching them the basics of debt management.

The students have signed on as peer financial counselors, part of a new effort by the university's financial aid office to help students educate each other on the basics of financial and debt management. So far student counselors have led sessions at sorority meetings and residence halls on budgeting basics and credit use.

"I have personal experience in having to deal with this," says peer counselor Lucy Lee, who joined the program after overspending on a credit card. "I'm still learning as I'm helping others."

Lee, a senior political science major from Dallas, says that she and most students "don't know how we're going to deal with all the financial responsibilities we're going to have once we leave this community." She expects that future sessions this spring on dealing with student loans will draw a lot of graduating students.

"I was surprised that at the end of each of our presentations, everyone was exploding with questions," says peer counselor Amy Youssef, a junior business major from Charleston, S.C. "Some things are basic that I couldn't believe people didn't know."

Youssef admits she probably has more financial experience than most; she took a year off between sophomore and junior year to work for American Express Financial Advisers. Despite her experience, she says, "some things I didn't know myself until I started doing the presentations." Such as? "I didn't know that negative things stay on your credit report for seven years. Most students think if they clear up a credit problem that the negative entry goes away, but it doesn't."

"The program is based on the premise that the best way to reach college students is by having other students share information and experiences that their peers can relate to and apply in their daily lives," says Maria Carthon, assistant director of financial aid and program director. She is working to recruit even more student counselors, and says freshmen have been among the program's best recruits.

Peer counseling is one of three new Emory initiatives funded through a recent grant from EdFund, a California-based national provider of student loan services. The grant also is helping to support publication of a quarterly debt-management newsletter--impishly titled SPLURGE--and hiring of a "virtual counselor" to dispense debt management advice to students online.

The peer counseling program was developed by students majoring in consumer economics at the University of Georgia. Currently 10 Georgia colleges and universities have implemented some form of the program on their campuses.

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For nearly two decades Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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