Weber State University’s Money Management Center helps students with their finances, offering financial coaching, FAFSA help and more. Daniel Kilcrease, executive director of Student Affairs Auxiliary Services, said he oversees finances and facilities, and the idea for the center came to him after hearing faculty talk about the benefits of providing financial coaching to students.

“I went to my boss at the time, and I said, ‘I think I could do this. I think I could just make a money management center,’” Kilcrease said. “And he was like, ‘You know what? Go for it.’”

The Money Management Center is currently located in the Shepherd Union building in room 214A across from the Fireplace Lounge. Back in 2016, though, it didn’t even have an official location.

“I talked to three students in a conference room,” Kilcrease said. “The CME said, ‘Hey, there’s these three students that want to talk about their finances,’ and I was like, ‘I’ll come over and talk to them.’ And I did that, and that was really the birth of the Money Management Center.”

Knowing the center would help students succeed, Kilcrease grew the center from its beginnings.

“I scrounged up an office, right?” Kilcrease said. “I convinced somebody to let me put a shingle up in an office, and I got some educational and general funds, so some tuition dollars to be able to hire a student worker.”

Kilcrease promoted the Money Management Center by wearing a suit and tie with printed money on it. Kilcrease wore the suit to the WSU Block Party and again to ask the Student Fee Recommendation Committee for funds. Although the committee didn’t grant the center funds the first year, they did the next.

Now, the Money Management Center has its own full-time director and more hired student workers; it provides competent and personalized financial coaching to WSU students.

Student Affairs currently helps organize most of the student resources. The Nontraditional Student Center is one WSU doesn’t take for granted. Not every university has a center dedicated to helping nontraditional students.

Jared Tenney, the advisor at Nontrad, said WSU has a higher than average enrollment of nontraditional students, making the center valuable.

“We’re here to dedicate and create a fostering environment that supports students and empowers them,” Tenney said.

The center offers resources including peer mentoring and hourly childcare.

“Each student is going to be a little different, but for example, a parent who needs child care, we offer hourly childcare here and that is one barrier that we help break down for that student,” Tenney said.

Although she no longer needs childcare, she is appreciative of the other resources through Weber and Student Affairs.

“One thing I will say about being a nontraditional student is Weber by far has been the most accommodating and the most helpful with my circumstances than any other school I’ve been to … I’ve been very impressed with how willing they are to work with you in any circumstance of life,” Lindsay Ivins, a WSU senior and nontraditional student with four children said.

From money suits to individual coaching and dedicated spaces for nontraditional students, WSU Student Affairs offers Wildcats tools to help them in their journey to graduation and well-being.