American Student Assistance
Reinventing financial literacy to RESONATE with young people
“DSS designed a fresh new business model for our $500M/year organization. They developed an entire product ecosystem and overhauled our communications strategy to truly reach our audience. They are hands down the best consultants I’ve ever worked with—and I’ve worked with dozens in my career.”
THE REALITY
Despite millions of dollars being invested every year, financial literacy programs often struggle to be effective at driving long-term sustained behavioral change, particularly among young people.
As an organization focused on helping students pursue a college degree, American Student Assistance (ASA) knew they needed to think differently to ensure students can manage their student loans and maintain financial wellness, especially as the costs of higher education continue to rise. ASA came to DSS to turn their financial literacy program, Salt, into a movement.
OUR APPROACH
We know that being prescriptive and telling young people not to buy the latte just doesn’t work. Instead, we built a clear vision and communications strategy to champion Salt as a national movement to empower students on their own terms, and position ASA as an innovative force for change – much more than a mere financial education institution.
We then developed a tailored ecosystem of products and programs that gave voice to the millions of young people struggling with student loans and provided them the tools and channels for them to take back financial control.
THE IMPACT
At its peak, the Salt program achieved 1.5 million registered users, with over 100,000 unique monthly viewers. The program also provided comprehensive education debt management to 3 million borrowers, leading to default rates that were consistently below the national average.
Best of all, ASA now has a culture that encourages innovation and fosters big thinking on how to stay relevant to young people today.