The FCS agent collaborated with faculty in the Child and Family Studies Department at Berea College to share materials to a Child and Family Studies (CFS) 145 class.  CFS 145 is a course that focuses on consumer decision making and features students from various years of experiences as well as a variety of educational backgrounds and majors or concentrations. This collaboration resulted in a one day "crash-course" covering finance management and budgeting to build upon the current topics covered by the Berea College staff.  The class consisted of 22 students with a wide range of ethnically diverse young adults as well as consisted of a broad range of  personalities and experiences, as it typical of Berea College students.  

The crash course focused on several dynamics of finance management and budgeting topics such as learning your budgeting style, creating a budget, understanding payments and priorities, and taking advantage of saving opportunities.  The students participated in the Bean Game, and learned how to best utilize their resources to make sure that all their needs are met, as well as learned to create a new budget if their resources were to become scarce.  The FCS Agent coordinated the discussions and presented the topics with some tools such as game, grids, and spreadsheets to help accentuate the details within each topic to make it relevant to the students both at this point in their financial journeys, as well as for the future.

The students were given evaluations at the end of the course to identify their current understandings before and after the class on four content areas which included: Knowing your money style, Getting started with a budget, Payments and priorities, and Starting to save.  

The students reported that the crash course about finance management was beneficial to them, especially those looking to face graduation sooner than later. Students reported that this course gave them the tools necessary to understand good finance management practices when they begin their careers after Berea College.  The students enjoyed the savings strategies as initial outcomes from this course, and noted that intermediate and long term outcomes from this course pertained more to understanding their budgeting style as well as creating financial priorities for themselves and their families in the future.

One student noted that this course especially helped him to figure out his financial priorities, track current spending habits, find creative new ways to save money, and learn negotiation strategies for debt solutions should he ever fall into a situation where he would need to use it.

All 22 students in the course noted on their evaluation that they planned at least one behavior change across the four categories and 19 of the students noted that they planned behavior changes in two or more categories.

All of the students reported growth in at least on of the four areas, and 17 of the 22 students reported growth in all 4 content areas as a result of the crash course.