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Supporting Student Success: UK Student Financial Wellness Center

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017

This week, our community celebrated another milestone in our commitment to putting students first in everything we do.

The four pillars of student success—academic success, financial stability, wellness, and belonging—guide us as we align our resources and create initiatives to help students, not just succeed, but thrive on our campus. On Monday, we unveiled a resource specifically targeting the second pillar—financial stability.

The UK Student Financial Wellness Center, located in 302 Patterson Hall, houses a team of experts to help guide students in their financial journeys.

The UK Financial Wellness team and the MoneyCATS program, powered by PNC Bank, will provide students with the tools and support they need to build a strong foundation for their financial present and future.

The center has also partnered with iGrad, an award-winning financial literacy platform, to provide additional tools and resources for fostering financial wellness. On the iGrad platform, students can explore articles, videos, calculators, games, modules, and more related to this important dimension of wellness.

The Center is an important component of our overall effort to support students’ financial stability.

To that end, we are also investing more in scholarships and financial aid that students don't need to repay. Our UK LEADS (Leveraging Economic Accessibility for Developing Success) initiative refocuses institutional aid in a way that better addresses unmet financial need.

We’ve received national attention for our efforts to tackle unmet financial need—a significant challenge for student success.

Last week, President Capilouto and I wrote an op-ed regarding this issue in Inside Higher Ed.

All of these efforts, across these pillars, focus on a single idea: how can we better help students succeed? How can we better prepare them for lives of meaning and purpose?

I look forward to continuing this work, together.

 

Timothy S. Tracy

@UKYProvost

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