Impact

We are all about making a positive impact on students' lives through financial education. Check out the information below to see how we've done over the past several fiscal years.

SMMC FY2026 Contacts by Andrea Pellegrini, University of Illinois System Student Money Management Center

For detailed information about our FY2026 programs, partnerships, and initiatives including our Get Savvy webinar series, Making Cents of Money podcast, digital campaigns, and special projects please view our complete annual report.

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SMMC Outreach Over Time

The number of contacts we've made through digital campaigns or activities, Money Mentors referrals, and live webinars over the last several fiscal years has varied. For reference, our fiscal years start July 1 and run through June 30 of the following calendar year.

Fiscal Year Outreach Data

SMMC outreach by type for fiscal years 2020–2025

Fiscal Year	Digital Campaign or Activity	Money Mentors Referrals	Webinar Attendance
2020	3,287	1	186
2021	4,452	61	743
2022	4,336	37	620
2023	2,424	32	526
2024	2,600	37	494
2025	4,253	—	572

Note: Money Mentors referrals were put on hold in late FY2024 due to limited capacity within Illinois Extension. Individual financial coaching sessions are not currently available as a SMMC service.

FY2026 Highlights

FY2026 saw significant growth in digital campaign participation and sustained engagement through our Get Savvy webinar series and Making Cents of Money podcast. 

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E-newsletter Engagement

We send bi-weekly e-newsletters to students, employees, and parents who subscribe. SMMC continued sending these newsletters throughout FY2026, providing accessible financial education content and promoting upcoming webinars and resources.

Current Subscriber Counts (as of Summer 2026)

Financial Literacy Digital Badges Program

We've been facilitating the University of Illinois Financial Literacy Digital Badges Program since fall 2014. The program offers self-paced courses in five key areas: Borrow, Earn, Protect, Save, and Spend.

Students can earn digital badges by completing modules and quizzes in each course area. These badges demonstrate financial literacy competencies and can be shared on resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and digital portfolios. Learn more about the badges program.

FY2026 Badge Program Participation

During FY2026, students completed quizzes across all five badge courses. In FY2026, digital campaigns were moved to Qualtrics to reduce user experience friction from the Moodle self-enrollment which often led to premature drop-offs in completion rates.

FY2026 Digital Campaign Participation

Our semiannual financial education campaigns include Understand Your Refund and Know What You Owe which targets students based on their student account activity: