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Financial Literacy

About financial literacy

Inceptia is working with the University of Rochester to give you a leg up on financial education with our online program, Financial Avenue. Financial Avenue will provide you with smart resources to help demystify the world of personal finance. Trust us – getting a handle on your money doesn’t have to feel overwhelming or restrictive. It’s all about empowering yourself with smart basics, and planning from there.

About Financial Avenue

With Inceptia’s money mascot – the Knowl – as your trusty guide, you can choose from ten online courses that take on big financial topics, without all of the snore-inducing jargon that you may have seen before. Using quizzes, videos, interactive tools, and easy-to-understand tips, the Knowl explains subjects such as:

  • Paying for college
  • Budgeting
  • Credit and identity theft
  • Career planning
  • Managing student loans
  • Understanding a paycheck

The Knowl even explains bigger concepts like the psychology of money, which helps you to understand your personal relationship with money, and why you spend the way you do.

The Knowl: Your financial wellness friend

Who can benefit from using Financial Avenue?

Whether you are preparing for college, or are already enrolled, both prospective and current students will benefit. Whether you have borrowed student loans or not, all students need to plan for their financial futures. There is something for everyone with Financial Avenue.

How much do students pay for Financial Avenue?

Financial Avenue is offered at no charge to students.

How do I sign up?

Join Financial Avenue at University of Rochester’s custom URL, or go to Financial Avenue and find our school in city/state drop down menu.

Master your money

With Financial Avenue and the Knowl, you will receive an online experience customized to your needs, all within the following courses:

Available online courses

Psychology of Money

Welcome to Psychology of Money, a course that’s going to teach you a little bit about your brain, and a lot about your brain’s reaction to money. Don’t worry, you’re still going to learn about budgeting, saving and other financial must-knows. You’ll find all that in the other courses. But first, you’ve got to understand why humans handle money the way we do, and why sometimes your brain is your own worst financial enemy.

College and Money

But what does that mean, really? Well, it’s a pretty simple equation. Is the money you’ll earn – or the opportunities that will arise – because of your college degree be worth the money you paid for it? In this course, the Knowl will give you some good info about maximizing the value you get from your college investment, while minimizing the costs.

Loan Guidance

For many of us, student loans aren’t optional. But they can quickly turn into a scary tangle of debt, stress, and confusion. In this course, the Knowl will help make things easy and give you a clear understanding of how loans work, and how to manage and pay them off without the stress.

Credit and Protecting Your Money

You’ve heard about how important knowing your credit score is, right? Your credit score and credit history form the basis for what we call your financial story. It’s a complete picture of your financial health and your future potential. Being able to craft your story the way you want it, and keep it safe, is what this course is all about.

Debt and Repayment

It’s not much fun to think about debt. And it’s even less fun thinking about how you’ll pay it off.  But the Knowl’s here to make things easier, so debt doesn’t become a major problem that messes up your financial life. The trick is to think about debt the right way, as a balancing act between the needs of the “present you” and the “future you.”

Foundations of Money (available in Spanish)

Saving an extra $1,000 to spend on something special sounds pretty sweet, right? The Knowl knows how to get this done, with three, very doable steps. Naturally, he calls it “the Knowl way to stash away $1K.” This course lays it out, and in the process gives you a solid foundation in money management.

FAFSA (available in Spanish)

Filling out and submitting the FAFSA is one of the key steps in getting financial aid for college. And not just aid from the federal government. Most schools require you to fill out the FAFSA no matter what, and getting state aid is often dependent on it. In this course, the Knowl gives you all the FAFSA knowledge you need to take care of this important step.

Earning Money

In the courses you’ve been taking, you’ve learned how to save, spend and manage your money. But you need one final piece to fall into place: how to earn money. The Knowl kicks off this course with the Money Making Blueprint.

Every day, ads and commercials pressure you to buy things, and more things, more often. That’s how our consumer society works. It’s not that spending is bad – you just need to have the know-how to spend money wisely. Yeah, you’ve heard that before.

We’ve got some tried and true strategies to help you make smart choices about your spending and borrowing. Strategies that will put you in control of your own money.

Future of Your Money

There are many decisions to be made about your money today – and about your money in the future. But learning how to make good decisions takes a lot of trial and error. The Knowl doesn’t want you to lose your hard-earned money if he can help it, so in this course, you get to make money decisions for two virtual people – Ms. A and Mr. B. By letting them make the mistakes, you can do all the learning, without the losing.

Dropkick your debt

Debt is a four letter word. But Financial Avenue can help. If your student loan payments have gotten you down, take control with Financial Avenue by learning about plans that lower your payments, ways to pause payments temporarily, or how to have your loans forgiven all together. Check out the checklist below to see how Financial Avenue can help you navigate through your repayment journey.

Know what you owe

  • Check nslds.ed.gov for federal student loan balances, what status they’re in, and who holds them.
  • Check annualcreditreport.com for private loans and other credit balances (or contact your private loan holder or your school’s financial aid office).
  • Questions? Contact your student loan servicer (where you send your payments).

Get ready for repayment

  • Understand your federal and private loan repayment options—including the monthly payment amount, the duration of repayment, the interest costs for the varying repayment options, and possibly even forgiveness.
  • Look into an interest rate reduction through automatic payment with your servicer.
  • Take advantage of the Federal Tax Deduction for student loan interest the next time you file taxes

Resources for parents

Inceptia has published the seventh annual Great Advice for Parents, an e-guide published through their partnership with personal finance site, NerdWallet. This collection of articles and tips is a resource for parents, students, educators and advocates on the college admissions process as well as a resource to help make informed financial choices.