Clark College Foundation received a $30,000 grant from the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington for a full-time financial literacy coach within Clark’s Career Services department. The grant provides the money to upgrade an existing literacy coach from part time to full time. The ultimate goal of the grant is to break generational cycles of poverty.
The financial literacy coach will conduct workshops and classroom presentations about budgets, balancing a checkbook, understanding credit cards, credit scores and loan repayment.
Teaching students financial wellness strategies increases the likelihood that they attain economic, educational and career goals. About 54 percent of Clark students are from families below the poverty level, 60 percent are unemployed and/or on public assistance and nearly 75 percent are first-generation college students.
