Westchester Community College (WCC), located in Valhalla, N.Y., is a public community college within the State University of New York system. WCC serves 21,000 full- and part-time students and 10,000 noncredit students.
Since the start of the current MSFCP grant in 2022, WCC has engaged nearly 300 students in one-on-one financial coaching.
WCC Staff
Nafisah Graham-Brown, Program Director
Marisa DiBenigno, Coach
Yolanda Candelario, Coach
WCC Success To Date
Supported by funding from JPMorgan Chase, WCC started the Center for Financial and Economic Education in 2011, with a goal of providing personal finance education to the campus community. Since that time, the program has grown to include financial coaching, classes, and workshops, involving over 4,000 students. In 2014, the college launched the Money Smart Forum, a financial coaching program, that became the model for the Money Smart Financial Coaching Program.
WCC Innovative Practices
During the 2023-2024 academic year, the WCC team was pleased to record some noteworthy accomplishments, including:
- Delivering over 400 individual coaching sessions, with an average of 4.5 coaching sessions per student;
- Hosting 19 personal finance workshops and seminars, reaching over 200 students;
- Engaging close to 500 students in a range of other personal finance education presentations;
- Achieving an average increase in savings of $2,300 across students in the program;
- Achieving average debt reduction of $606 and an average credit score improvement of 26 points for students in the program.
