On Monday, Nov. 4, Cameron Feist, Director of Financial Aid, and Maria Genao-Homs, Associate Dean of Students for Diversity and Inclusion, partnered with the Career Center’s Life Skills Connect Team to introduce iGrad, a new financial literacy program for the Hamilton community.
Melanie Geller ’22, a Network Associate for the Life Skills Connect Team, admits that she, along with many of her friends, has little knowledge of the basics of personal finance. She said, “We never really talk about finances in my family, and so all I really knew was the idea of ‘save some, spend some.’” Feist has heard many similar statements before, and saw a big push regarding interest in financial literacy. He and Genao-Homs began looking for programs to replace Salt, Hamilton’s previous financial literacy resource, following its elimination in Dec. 2018.
After interviewing multiple financial literacy programs, Feist and Genao-Homs chose iGrad, particularly for its features that help navigate student loan debt as well as credit card use and managing budgets. Once signed into iGrad, the program prompts users to take a brief quiz regarding their current circumstances, knowledge, and financial personality. The results from this quiz then allow the program to generate recommended tools and courses on a broad range of financial topics. One important feature that drew Feist and Genao-Homs to iGrad is the ability to directly input individual data from the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS), which allows personalization of student loan management. When discussing the various features of the program, Feist said, “I really like that it’s not intimidating in the way asking a question in-person may be, or overwhelming in the way a Google search may be. This is much more targeted.”
Geller agrees that the program is really helpful in its content and specificity, noting, “It’s easy to access things you might not have learned at home and even tells you how long a lesson takes.”
Another benefit of iGrad is that it will be available to more than just current Hamilton students. Genao-Homs said, “Our focus is certainly the student population, but iGrad also caters to employees at the college as well as alums.” Presently, sign-ups are limited to those with a Hamilton email address, but students will have the ability to continue using the program after graduation. Feist and Genao-Homs plan to extend the program to Hamilton employees as well.
Genao-Homs also pointed out the collaboration between herself and Feist adding, “it’s nice for students to realize that our offices don’t act separately. The support services on campus really are web, and overall financial wellness is important to us. We recognize that we are all starting in different places, since not everyone has financial wellness in their home. This is about getting educated, not learning how to amass wealth.”
iGrad is currently available for students to use at hamilton.igrad.com. Feist and Genao-Homs said that they will, “allow student interest to lead the direction of programming.” There will be upcoming events and workshops incorporating iGrad and it may be added to Residential Life curriculum as well. Ultimately, Feist said, “This is even beyond financial literacy, this is a resource for everybody.”
