Christ Yoder
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Student success
Western Governors U to Investigate Impact of Emergency Financial Aid on Detention
This spring, a segment of Western Governors UniversityMore than 120,000 students will have access to an emergency financial aid app for research into the impact of just-in-time fund disbursement on retention. The institution’s education-focused research and development lab and ED technology accelerator, WGU Laboratories, has partnered with the student financial support platform Edquity about the project.
The Edquity platform provides emergency aid underwriting and disbursement, referral to social services, and financial tracking tools. Its goal is to make emergency fund disbursements more efficient and to help students take advantage of the safety net programs offered by their institution, the company said in a press release. WGU, for example, pays about $ 1 million in emergency disbursements each year from its Financial Support Fund, money set aside to help students who are experiencing unusual hardships.
“Given the extremely precarious financial situation of most students – 50% of whom suffer from problems such as food or housing insecurity – it may take as little as a $ 200 shock to completely upend the student experience, ”said David Helene, founder and CEO of Edquity, in a statement. “Students may experience hardship that induces dropout and can lead to default, and often they don’t even realize their school is providing emergency funds.”
WGU Labs will analyze how students use the Edquity app, how they appreciate the app’s support features (such as information about social services in the local community), and how the app affects perceptions of institutional support.
“Our students live across the country, so the app’s ability to share information about local social services is essential,” said Amanda Savage, director of scholarships at WGU. “Edquity’s ‘culture of caring’ approach will help us meet the much more acute needs of the students who reach them and their families, while also speeding up the time to claim payments for those students who are having difficulty.”
