Invest In Student Financial Success

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Planning Your Support

Let’s schedule time to talk more about how you can provide support for financial wellness and completion grants at KU.
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Students Struggle with Finances

A recent study of 36,446 college students at 89 schools conducted by Trellis revealed that nearly half of college students struggle financially:

  • 48% of those who experienced financial challenges had difficulty concentrating on schoolwork because of their financial situation.
  • A majority reported difficulty finding $500 in case of an emergency, and 10% experienced all three forms of basic needs insecurity in the past year: food insecurity, housing insecurity, and homelessness.
  • Higher percentages of respondents who experienced financial distress were students of color, female students, first-generation students, or enrolled part-time.

KU Students Need Financial Guidance

Addressing student financial literacy and wellbeing is vital to the mission of the University of Kansas but a s fall 2023 survey found KU students need more support.

  • 46% of KU students didn’t have a personal budget, 20% didn’t have any financial goals and 48% didn’t know their credit score.
  • 40% of KU students said that their expenses exceeded their income over the last month.
  • 37% of KU students didn’t regularly put aside money for future use (i.e., emergency savings, etc.).
  • 17% had no confidence that they could come up with money to make ends meet if they had an unexpected expense.

Your Support Matters

With your donation, we can provide essential financial literacy and wellness support to University of Kansas students. Your generosity will equip them with the skills and resources they need to thrive academically and personally.

Investing financial literacy and wellbeing of KU students adds value beyond individual student; these core skills also translate into better outcomes for families, communities, and KU.

We have an opportunity to create financial wellness services for not only KU students, but also the surrounding community and the State of Kansas. As a result, KU would be helping to ensure its own success, regional prosperity, and national stability.

Benefits of Financial Wellness

  • Equip students with lifelong skills.
  • Increase in student success, wellbeing, and improved student experience.
  • Higher retention and graduation rates.
  • Decreased resource consumption of staff time for non-value-added tasks related to student account holds and balances; lower accounts receivable, increased resources to reinvest in our students.
  • More successful alumni and increased potential for donations.

Your Support at Work

Current funding for financial wellness programming comes from student fees approved by student government. KU students continue to choose to invest funding into these types of services, even as the cost of attending KU continues to increase.

Establishing additional, reliable funding sources would ensure that we do not have to continue to request higher fees from students and would safeguard the future of these services. Your contributions would be used for a range of financial wellness support:

  • Hiring additional staff dedicated to financial wellness initiatives.
  • Providing support services for students facing financial crises.
  • Expanding financial coaching and programming efforts.
  • Establishing a stable funding source for ongoing financial wellness.