Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Western Governors U to Study Impact of Emergency Financial Aid on Retention

This spring, a segment of Western Governors University's 120,000-plus students will have access to an emergency financial aid app as part of research into how the disbursement of just-in-time funds can impact retention. The institution's education-focused research and development lab and ed tech accelerator, WGU Labs, has partnered with student financial support platform Edquity on the project.  

The Edquity platform provides emergency aid underwriting and disbursement, social services referral and tools for tracking finances. Its goal is to make emergency fund disbursements more efficient and help students take advantage of the safety net programs offered by their institution, the company said in a news announcement. WGU, for instance, provides about $1 million in emergency disbursements each year from its Financial Support Fund, money set aside to help students who encounter unusual hardships.  

"Given the extremely precarious financial circumstances of most college students — 50 percent of whom suffer from issues like food or housing insecurity — it can take as little as a $200 shock to completely upend a student's experience," noted David Helene, founder and CEO of Edquity, in a statement. "Students can encounter hardships that induce dropout and potentially lead to loan default, and they often don't even realize that their school provides emergency funds."

WGU Labs will analyze how students use the Edquity app, how they value the app’s support features (such as information on social services in the local community) and how the app affects perceptions of institutional support.

"Our students live all over the country, so the app's ability to share information about local social services is critical," said Amanda Savage, director of scholarships at WGU. "Edquity's 'culture of caring' approach will help us address much more acute student needs that impact them and their families, while speeding up the request-to-disbursement timeframe for students who experience hardships."

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • CIS Sandbox Tutor Eli Blouin at Bentley University imagines a future technology learning partner that supports curiosity, critical thinking, feedback, and personalized learning.

    Student Voices: Technology as a Future Learning Partner

    A data analytics and marketing major at Bentley University and a distinguished lecturer at the university explore the future of "technology learning partners" — technologies that participate in the learning process by asking questions and giving feedback, not just information search results.

  • Abstract energetic glowing lines with particles

    Meta Steps Up Enterprise AI Ambitions with Muse Spark Launch

    Meta has announced the launch of Muse Spark 1.1, a multimodal reasoning model designed for agentic AI, alongside a new Meta Model API that gives developers access to the model for the first time.

  • Businessman using laptop analyzing data and growth graph chart

    AI Budgets in Education Show No Sign of Decline

    The vast majority of education organizations (98%) expect their AI infrastructure budgets to either increase or hold steady over the next year, according to a recent report from cloud storage provider Wasabi.

  • Dana Brunson facilitates a roundtable discussion with research and higher education IT leaders

    Internet2: Closing the Access Gap for Research Cyberinfrastructure

    Internet2's Research Engagement Team brings CIOs and other campus technology leadership together with research computing and data facilitators, forming a community that enables research cyberinfrastructure at institutions of all types and sizes.