From Debt to Decisions

USI-1040, an online course on Financial Literacy, was developed by Harbert college faculty Damion McIntosh, James Long and Kerry Inger. Carrie Leffler, a Harbert accounting lecturer, brought the course fully online and has plans for its continuous improvement.

College students graduate with valuable academic and professional skills, but many lack the essential personal finance skills. Put plainly, they don’t know how to manage their money. In a world where purchases are made with a click, a tap or a wcard, it’s easy to lose sight of the financial picture.

A recent survey of college graduates (Wakefield Research, 2024) queried grads: “a majority reported lacking basic money management skills while simultaneously carrying an average student loan debt of 40K.” And 91% of those surveyed said “a financial literacy class would have been more valuable than any other course they took.” A study featured in the Spring 2025 issue of Harbert Magazine led by J.K. Lowder Family Professor, Jitka Hilliard, found that Auburn graduates who lack financial literacy skills often carried higher amounts of student loan debt.

Financial literacy is not a small problem. “Personal finance is not just about the well-being of the individual,” says professor, Annamarie Lusardi. She directs Stanford’s Initiative for Financial Decision-Making. “It’s about the financial stability of a country.”

Harbert College’s Financial Wellness course equips students with the basics of money management and the skills to keep themselves financially healthy. The course development was made possible through the generosity of the Phillips and Trumbull families, UMB4AU, and donors during the 2024 Tiger Giving Day campaign.

Financial Wellness covers core topics like setting financial goals, understanding debt, credit management, interest, investing and budgeting. It delivers these topics in an engaging, online format that allows students to examine and use their own personal finances. Faculty creators and instructional designers focused on making challenging concepts and terms approachable. Interactive and hands-on, the format uses real-life scenarios which give students the ability to apply what they learn immediately.

The course aims to ensure that students leave Auburn financially literate—with the tools and resources to benefit their lives. It’s a benefit that ripples out to the state, the region and the nation.