The journey
Money Doctors has already been adopted by over half the universities across the UK.
So far, we estimate that 58,000 students have been helped by the service.
"It has enabled us to develop and provide a service which did not really exist prior to joining the Money Doctors scheme." Adviser
2010
Money Doctors: evaluation findings
An external evaluation published in June 2010 found that the Money Doctors programme has successfully equipped student money advisers with the skills and tools to proactively educate students to tackle money issues before they get into financial problems, and to help students become financially confident. View the full document here.
The impact on students:
- 80% of students who had used the service rated it as extremely, very or fairly good;
- 63% said they have taken, or plan to take action, as a result of a one-to-one Money Doctor session; and
- 30% of these students said that Money Doctors had actually helped them ‘afford to stay at university’.
"Fourth year is the hardest so far, but I don’t really think about the [money] problems I have had. I never worry about that now; I just get on with Uni." Student
The impact on student money advisers:
- 88% that it has enabled them to deliver a more proactive service;
- 79% that it changed the way they delivered financial guidance; and
- 75% that it enabled them to deliver a more educational service.
Curriculum project
In 2009 we funded four volunteer universities to pilot how financial capability could be used in the curriculum, and to share the results as ‘good practice’ that can be used by other universities. Each developed an approach to provide financial capability learning accredited by the university:
- De Montfort University developed a financial capability module as part of key skills for foundation year students, delivered to a Year 0 computing course.
- London Metropolitan University developed an online interactive learning tool ‘The Student Flat’ which uses student characters to demonstrate financial dilemmas, and a Year 3 elective financial capability module to help final year students.
- University of East London developed an online learning tool to deliver Money Matters Finance Unit as part of their Skills Module for first-years.
- York University developed a financial capability module within the framework of the York Award – a certified programme of skills training and experiental learning to increase student employability, through classroom and online learning.
2009
New universities continued to join the Money Doctors project, bringing the total to 84. We continued to develop the support package for these Money Doctors universities, as well as raising the profile of financial capability within the Higher Education sector across the UK.
2007-08
We recruited an additional 33 ‘Early Adopter’ universities to be the first to use the Money Doctors Toolkit, and to help us continue to develop best practice. We established a support network for these universities, holding regional meetings, training events, an online forum and a buddy system.
We published ‘Graduating with Financial Capability’ which examined the benefits of the project, and the challenges faced by the Money Doctor universities in delivering proactive financial support and education to students. It also contained the results of the first formal assessment of the project.
2006-07
We worked with 19 universities acting as 'Early Developers' of the project, by adapting the Roehampton model for their own institutions and identifying ‘best practice’. This formed the comprehensive Money Doctors Toolkit [LINK to dedicated section]. The Toolkit and a Money Doctors game were sent to each Higher Education Institution in the UK.
2005
The project began at Roehampton University. We wanted to develop new and proactive approaches to engage students in taking control of their finances and to confront debt problems, and produced a practical ‘toolkit’ to setting up a student money programme. We produced sample business cases to help student advisers secure university resource for a Money Doctors scheme of their own.