Impact

We are all about making a positive impact on students' lives through financial education. Check out the information below to see how we've done over the past several fiscal years.

SMMC FY2025 Contacts by Andrea Pellegrini, University of Illinois System Student Money Management Center

For detailed information about our FY2025 programs, partnerships, and initiatives—including our Get Savvy webinar series, Making Cents of Money podcast, digital campaigns, and special projects—please view our complete annual report.

SMMC Outreach Over Time

The number of contacts we've made through digital campaigns or activities, Money Mentors referrals, and live webinars over the last several fiscal years has varied. For reference, our fiscal years start July 1 and run through June 30 of the following calendar year.

Fiscal Year Outreach Data

Note: Money Mentors referrals were put on hold in late FY2024 due to limited capacity within Illinois Extension. Individual financial coaching sessions are not currently available as a SMMC service.

FY2025 Highlights

FY2025 saw significant growth in digital campaign participation and sustained engagement through our Get Savvy webinar series and Making Cents of Money podcast. For complete details on programs, partnerships, and initiatives, view our FY2025 Annual Report.

E-newsletter Engagement

We send bi-weekly e-newsletters to students, employees, and parents who subscribe. SMMC continued sending these newsletters throughout FY2025, providing consistent financial education content and promoting upcoming webinars and resources.

Current Subscriber Counts (as of December 2024)

Financial Literacy Digital Badges Program

We've been facilitating the University of Illinois Financial Literacy Digital Badges Program since fall 2014. The program offers self-paced courses in five key areas: Borrow, Earn, Protect, Save, and Spend.

Students can earn digital badges by completing modules and quizzes in each course area. These badges demonstrate financial literacy competencies and can be shared on resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and digital portfolios. Learn more about the badges program.

FY2025 Badge Program Participation

During FY2025, students completed quizzes across all five badge courses, with significant engagement in the Borrow course due to our integrated semiannual financial literacy campaigns.

FY2025 Digital Campaign Participation

Our semiannual financial literacy campaigns—Understand Your Refund and Know What You Owe (revised as "Fact Check Your Debt" in spring 2025)—reached significant numbers of students:

Note: The Borrow Badge course includes campaign-based, targeted educational interventions, which increases enrollment and exposure to all other quizzes in the course. This is why there are typically more completed quizzes for the Borrow course compared to others in the Financial Literacy Digital Badges Program.

Learn More About Our FY2025 Impact

This page provides a high-level overview of SMMC's reach and impact. For comprehensive information about our FY2025 programs, including:

• Detailed webinar series results and survey findings
• Podcast growth and episode highlights
• Website analytics and geographic reach
• Moodle course updates across all five badge areas
• Special initiatives like the "Graduating – What Now?" parent pilot
• Federal student loan outreach efforts
• Partnership collaborations and FY2026 goals