The START (Saving Toward A Rewarding Tomorrow) financial literacy program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has received $41,000 from USA Funds in recognition of the campus’s efforts to promote financial literacy and help students minimize and manage their student loan debt.
Since 2006, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has undertaken a financial literacy initiative that relies on students teaching students. The program began by using peer educators to teach incoming students about personal finance issues during New Student Orientation and later expanded to include other freshmen learning communities.
Since the program’s inception, almost 3,000 UH Mānoa students have completed the lessons of USA Funds Life Skills, a financial literacy program for college students. Participants have demonstrated a statistically significant gain in personal finance knowledge on average.
“By using our own experiences and sharing our financial knowledge with others, we feel that we opened the door to a better future for our fellow students,” said Jimmy Leung, a START peer educator.
START is a collaboration of faculty and staff members from diverse units on campus supported by the Office of Undergraduate Education. For more information or to schedule a financial literacy workshop, email the START program.
