LEXINGTON, Ky. (FOX 56) — A 2019 report from EVERFI polled roughly 30,000 college students across 440 schools and found that 53% felt they were prepared to manage their money.
With a first-of-its-kind program, the University of Kentucky wants to make sure more of its students are set up for financial success.
It’s called UK Invests. After a successful pilot program last year with a limited number of students, the university is rolling it out to all students.
It isn’t just about helping students be financially prepared for life after college; it even helps them during their time at UK.
UK Invests gives every student who signs up a free investment account through Fidelity and access to a number of different resources where they can learn more about money management.
Each year, the university contributes $250 to the account, so at a minimum, if a student signs up for UK Invests and doesn’t touch their account, they could walk away with $1,000 if they start the program their freshman year.
Students can earn more money by showing certain positive behaviors, like getting involved on campus. From there, it’s the student’s money, and they’re free to do whatever they want with it, whether that be invest it in a mutual fund, in individual stocks, or just take money out when they need some extra cash.
“What we’re trying to do is provide the financial knowledge of how a mutual fund works, how an equity or a stock works, how a money market account works,” Dr. Eric Monday, executive VP for finance and administration at UK, said. “They make the decisions. We educate them; we provide the knowledge. It’s their decision.”
Monday said the goal for the program is to get roughly 20% of the students involved in the coming months.
As the school tries to get more and more students involved, parents have been huge proponents of getting their kids to participate, and the hope is that once students get involved, they’ll tell their friends about it.
One of those students already involved is sophomore Katie Reid. She said that prior to getting involved with UK Invests, the extent of her financial literacy came from her high school economics class, but Reid said that was very confusing.
As a psychology major, Reid said the way the university and Fidelity put the information on the UK Invests site makes it very easy to understand. It takes the stress out of learning how to invest.
“I mean, even if you don’t want to go to all of the events and stuff, there’s so much you can do at home,” Reid explained. “Like I watch videos sitting here in bed, and I am comfy while I was learning it, and I earned money for doing so. Like, it’s just a good thing to have, even if you aren’t sure if you’re gonna use it or whatever. Like once you actually start seeing how easy it is, it makes you want to do it.”
What’s next for the program after being unrolled for the more than 33,000 students on campus?
Monday said they plan on rolling it out to faculty and staff.
To learn more about UK Invests, you can find it here.
