Setting Recent College Grads on a Path to Financial Security
TrustPlus financial coaching is now available as a feature of the student loan fintech A.M. Money
We’re excited to announce that we’re teaming up with A.M. Money, a Chicago-based student loan company that provides low-interest, no-cosigner loans to low- and middle-income college students, to provide TrustPlus to recent college graduates.
College graduates who have a student loan from A.M. Money will have access to TrustPlus financial coaching as part of A.M. Money’s job onboarding package and build a foundation for financial health as they enter a challenging job market. TrustPlus is the first of a suite of tools and products A.M. Money will begin to roll out over the next year to help its student loan borrowers successfully navigate the post-college effort to secure employment and start a career.
“We know this is a very important and complex financial moment, and we’ve learned that for many of our students, they are more or less thrown out into the working world with no support whatsoever,” said Daniel Rogers, Founder and CEO of A.M. Money. “For years we’ve been spending hours to informally counsel our students through this moment. The ability to partner with a best-in-class service like TrustPlus will provide a great opportunity for us to formalize and scale up this support for all of our graduates.”
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, college students graduating this year are entering one of the toughest job markets since the Great Depression; more than 45 million people have applied for unemployment insurance since March and the number of entry-level job postings (typically filled by recent college graduates) has fallen 73 percent over the past three months. Additionally, they join the nearly 45 million people holding $1.6 trillion in student loan debt in the U.S. With research showing that the economic effects from entering a job market during a recession can last 10 to 15 years, new grads will likely be making tough decisions that will have a reverberating effect on their financial health now and in the years to come. A.M. Money seeks to provide their student loan borrowers with support and resources like TrustPlus financial coaching to help them navigate the economic environment and create financial stability.
“We’ve seen time and again how student loan debt can impact not only how workers manage their hard-earned money, but also what jobs to take and when or whether to buy a home or start a family,” said Justine Zinkin, CEO, Neighborhood Trust. “We built TrustPlus to be the human coaching feature of industry leading fintechs that solve for workers’ financial precarity. TrustPlus Financial Coaches will serve as an important feature of the A.M. Money experience, easing the burden of student loan debt and other financial challenges for new grads and helping them create financial security as they launch their careers.”
The partnership between A.M. Money and Neighborhood Trust is launching with a three-month pilot to 20 recent graduates to learn how they respond to and utilize TrustPlus, with a goal to eventually expand the service to provide support to thousands of students in the coming years.
About A.M. Money
A.M. Money is a student loan company that offers a healthier approach to financing higher education. Their mission is to ensure that financial challenges do not prevent students from completing college and pursuing their careers. The company is the first private lender to offer affordable credit to students without the need for cosigners or credit scores, while providing flexible income-based repayment terms to qualified students to help manage inevitable periods of financial instability. For more information, please visit www.chicagostudentloans.com.
TrustPlus is now offering our financial coaching services for free for the rest of the year to small businesses and their workers, as well as providing critical resources to protect workers and families impacted financially by COVID-19. Learn more about our relief efforts.
