Accounting Department to Offer New “Life Skills for Money Wellness” Course

Managing finances is a life-long skill that allows one to become self-reliant and independent. Stepping into the financial world can be overwhelming to those who are not familiar with the topic. This is why Frostburg State University’s Accounting Department is beginning to offer ACCT 101, ‘Life Skills for Money Wellness’ to all Frostburg State University student this upcoming Spring 2022 semester. This course will cover the basics of financial stability and teach students real-world skills. The Bottom Line sat down with Dr. Chelsea Schrader, head of Frostburg’s accounting department, to talk about the new program.

Students of all ages have requested that a course about finances be taught at Frostburg. The Accounting Department had been planning to implement this course for about a year and a half, but the plan was halted as a result of the pandemic.

“We pulled some students and got a lot of feedback over time that students wanted a financial literacy course. They want to know the basics. I have been asked by a number of different groups around campus to do workshops about debit cards, credit cards, managing debt, and taxes. So, we wanted to offer a course across campus that is going to cover all of these different things.”

The class is offering students from every major a chance to be educated on the fundamentals of finance that everyone can use. “I apply these skills in my life…” Dr. Schrader commented, “it’s going to be a practical hands-on course. A lot of courses tend to be more theoretical in nature. We’re going to have actual hands-on activities in this course that will allow students to use these skills. One of the things we are going to do is create a personal financial plan.” 

The creation of a student’s financial plan will give students solid groundwork on which they can successfully build their financial lives. “56% of Americans have less than $10,000 in retirement savings, and 44% of them can’t cover an emergency of $400 without going into debt. When you look at those numbers in today’s environment, when emergencies happen quite frequently, we want to have the opportunity to provide that kind of knowledge to our students,” Dr. Schrader continued.

“We don’t want people to be scared by the ‘ACCT’ code. We want to make sure that people understand what the course is actually going to be about. I’m not saying that it’s going to be a breeze of a course, but it’s not going to be a purposefully difficult course. It’s going to be something that helps you with those skills that everyone asks for.”

A major challenge for college students across the country is the massive amount of debt that is piled onto them as a result of getting a degree. Increasing understanding of debt created by college will be addressed by the course. Dr. Schrader mentioned, “one of the biggest things that I’ve seen with my friends and personal life, and what some students have talked to me about, is student loan debt. Just understanding the true cost of revolving debt over time and then how you can manage your student debt and how you can pay it off quickly can help.”

ACCT 101 is a three-credit course that will be required for the University’s accounting minor. For the rest of Frostburg’s student body, it is a completely open course, meaning that no prerequisites are required to enroll. The course will go over a wide variety of finance-related topics such as retirement savings, taxes, W-2’s, W-4’s, credit card interest rates, budgeting, and investments. The course will be taught by Professor Kiersten Bradley, a Frostburg alumni, in the upcoming Spring 2022 semester and then by Dr. Chelsea Schrader in the following semesters. 

“This course is going to help give a practical approach to understanding financial skills. It’s going to give you hands-on coverage of the introductory financial literacy skills to help you gain confidence when it comes to your money. We all want to be independent, and I think having that knowledge will not only give financial confidence, but it will give financial independence.”