898: Providing a Financial Advantage to the University Community - with Megan Eisenhard, Chief Growth Officer, University Credit Union

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to add up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. Dr. Joe Sallustio back in another episode here. I kind of took a break to be honest with you guys. I have some hosts that I rely upon. They fill in for me when I've done too many podcasts or I have something else going on or my voice isn't with me that day. Shout out to Dr. Michelle Cantu-Wilson who sits in for me quite a bit and Dr. Laurie Shanderson who's been sitting in for me quite a bit. 
But I'm back today and I feel great and I got a great guest with me. Of course in higher education you all know if you're listening to this podcast we're in the middle of a FAFSA debacle that we're all working through. Families, adult students try to figure out how to think about affording their education. Affordability is on the minds of every student at this point, definitely on the minds of parents. My sister-in-law is sending my niece to college and just this week finally got all their financial aid packages in from the school she was looking at. And she's going to the Colorado School of Mines, which is an incredible school, shout out to Mines. And so it's just, everything's delayed. It's crazy what's been happening. And that doesn't include things like NIL and what's going on in athletics, it doesn't include affordability and endowments and all these things that are going on today. 
So we brought an expert to talk to us about some of the financial pieces of what's going on in higher ed. Let's get her on right now, ladies and gentlemen. She is Megan Eisenhard. She is the chief growth officer at University Credit Union. Megan, welcome to EdUp.
Megan Eisenhard: Thank you. Happy to be here. I love the clapping. And also I live in Golden, Colorado. So down the street from the Colorado School of Mines.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: See, look at that. They just, the crowd is going wild. Yeah, we're very happy and excited. My niece is, she's super excited. But you know, it's not been easy for students this year. It's insane actually. You know, what are you hearing out there? You hearing the same kind of stuff?
Megan Eisenhard: Yeah, for sure. Facing quite the battle, not only the FAFSA you talked about, but just, you know, today, let's see it's in May, there's been a lot happening on college campuses as well. So not only getting to college, but then being in college, how do you survive in today's world? So lots going on for sure.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, you're right. Well, level set for us. Tell us about University Credit Union. What do you do? How do you do it?
Megan Eisenhard: So University Credit Union was founded on UCLA's campus in 1951 by the staff of UCLA. They wanted a better banking experience and so they came together, created a charter and started University Credit Union 73, 74 years ago. Since then, we have thrived at UCLA, but over the recent years, we've really expanded to try to reach more universities. There's obviously very many, there's a lot of them.
And we want to be able to serve. Our mission is to provide everyone in the university community a financial advantage. So that's not only students, but it's faculty, staff, alumni, and their families. And so again, starting at UCLA, but then growing. So we have partnerships with a lot of schools in the University of California system, as well as some private schools in California. And we've expanded recently to some schools in Georgia and Texas, and others might be coming as well.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: So tell me how what you do at University Credit Union benefits somebody who works in, who works, I guess, for university or college or attends the university or college. What could it be parents of a student who attends University of College? And then what is it that you do for them that maybe would be better off than a regular banking system?
Megan Eisenhard: Exactly. Well, so for starters, we are a credit union, which...
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Can you explain that to us? Because I guarantee you, and I'm not talking about myself here, there's somebody listening, not me, who doesn't understand. I just want to stress that, that doesn't understand the difference.
Megan Eisenhard: The banks do pretty much everything that banks can do, but we are a member-owned cooperative. So essentially we are owned by our members, not shareholders. And our mission is to give back to that community, which all credit unions do. We give back to the community and our member owners. They own us. So it's our role to make sure that we're doing good business practices and then giving back that money to whatever, whoever we serve. Now we serve the university community. So our field of membership, so essentially each credit union is bound to their charter and their charter states who they can serve. So a lot of credit unions serve their communities. We serve the university community. 
So we are limited, it's probably not the right word, but we specialize in the people within the university community. Like I said, so it's students, faculty, staff, alumni, and their parents. And because of that, we can essentially create programs specifically for this community. We understand this community. Again, we were founded by the staff at UCLA and we take pride in really understanding what does it look like on a university campus and how can our products and services help the different members of each kind of group within a university community. 
Another thing that we really pride ourselves on is that we are certified experts in what we do. So 90% of the people that work at University Credit Union, whether it's someone you call when you call our 1-800 number, or it's someone that you see on the university campuses, or even people in our back office that are handling finance and accounting, 90% are certified experts within this field. So we take pride in being nerds, quite honestly. Our CEO talks about it.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Me too.
Megan Eisenhard: Yeah, we love being nerds. And so if we're serving the university community that has obviously a value in education and learning, we want to make sure that our employees also have that same value of continuously learning and going above and beyond to be experts in certain fields.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Very nice description. So how does this work? Do you work with the university itself and then you serve the individuals within that ecosystem? Or are you going consumer business to consumer or both?
Megan Eisenhard: Yeah. So essentially within our field of membership, we have a lot of the UC schools and we have other private schools where we have created contracts. So we'll go to the school and say, you know, we want to have an official relationship with you. We want to be able to engage with your students, faculty and staff. And we want to be part of your benefits. We want your employees and your students to know that because they're attending or working at or an alumni of those schools, they have access to become a member of University Credit Union. So sometimes it's just open based on our charter and sometimes we actually go out and try to build a more formal relationship with schools.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: So it could be worked into a university benefits package alright. So I could be a student I don't have a banking set up or I need to get banking set up so this is a way I can do that. Or I'm an employee, perhaps I need just better services, right? And do you, what about rates and things? How does all that work? Is there benefits to being a member of the credit union that maybe give me an advantage? As you talked about, how did you put it? A financial advantage for those that you work with. How does that work?
Megan Eisenhard: Absolutely. So like I mentioned, because we're a member cooperative, any money that we make beyond just running a sustainable business, we give back. And a lot of that is our good rates. We actually have a best rate in the nation guarantee, where we look every month at standards employers, what's going out, what's everybody else doing. We want to make sure our rates are in the top 5% of any rate you can get across our portfolio. So that's loans, that's checkings, that's savings, that's kind of any product that you would need from a bank or a credit union, we most likely have it and we most likely have the best rate you can find out there.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Okay, so walk me through this because I'm interested now, I'm listening to this and I'm going, wow, this would be... Yeah, probably. Because you know what, I didn't know too much about University Credit Union before I know we had you on the podcast and I did my normal thing and I look around and do a little bit of research. But I go, okay, what is it, you know, and maybe you don't have to go through exact operational pieces, but let's say I wanna partner with you. I want you to offer your services to my university constituents. Is there a fee I have to pay into this? Is it just some partnership agreement we have to work through because boy what a benefit I would be able to provide if it's low cost or no cost to me just as a service to my university constituents without you know without a lot of hassle so to speak because it's all about the benefits you can provide these days to employees especially.
Megan Eisenhard: Absolutely so industry in general and so some schools might have pre-existing relationships with other credit unions like again founded on UCLA's campus. So there are other credit unions that were founded on college campuses across the country. So number one, I would do a little bit of research to see what's available in my area because credit unions, we all support each other. The good thing about credit unions is we're not as competitive as banks because we are limited to our charter and our field of membership. And so we want to just make sure number one, go find a credit union. And if there isn't a credit union option in your area, then talk to us and we can see if you can fit within our field of membership that we have currently.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: It's amazing. I mean, what a great benefit to provide to, you know, how many people out there have financial problems. Budgeting, you know, trying to get themselves out of debt, student loan debt, consolidating loans, not even knowing how to go about those types of things. There's so much education out there or how much you have to be educated with financial literacy to really understand so that you don't put yourself into debt for so many years. I would imagine that you have as an institution that has membership, that's always an awareness piece for you because you don't want people that are not succeeding right within your ecosphere.
Megan Eisenhard: Absolutely. Our goal is to provide a way for our members to have upward mobility in life. Yes, financial literacy, financial wellness that is paramount to our mission and I was talking earlier about how we're all certified experts. Well, the goal is to share that information with our members and prospective members so we can help them because you're right. Like the amount of information out there today is bananas and so we want to make sure that they're getting unbiased conflict free advice from the financial experts to help them with their journey. And again, goal is to have everyone become a member. But if we can help someone in the university community and they decide not to become a member, we're still serving our purpose. And so we certainly, we value financial literacy, financial wellness. And I know you mentioned NIL and we'll get there, but that's a big reason why we want to really focus on the younger generation, especially because it's amazing where they're getting their information these days.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Isn't that the truth?
Megan Eisenhard: Yes. We want to be able to be someone they come to and trust and say, hey, like I saw this on TikTok, is this legit? And we want to help them understand, well, let's talk through it. Like, what did you hear? How did you hear it? Like, what's the source? And let me show you some data and let's go from there.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well, let's go there. Let's go to NIL a little bit because, you know, this is, it's funny how fast this has evolved, right? In the last four or five years, it is evolving so quickly. A little birdie, of course, told me that you were involved with NIL a little bit. You've got some deals that you've made out there. You want to give us a rundown of how the University Credit Union is involved in the NIL space, maybe some wins that you have, and we'll go from there.
Megan Eisenhard: Sure, absolutely. So again, our job is to understand what's happening in the collegiate landscape, and that's in all areas. That's in student affairs and student success. That's what's happening with staff, what's happening with alumni. So a big area of colleges, athletics. So a lot of our schools that we partner with, we have a contract to do marketing and engagement through athletics. That is a lot of times the front door to a university where people really get to know a school before they dive deeper into understanding if it's right for them. So athletics has always been part of our strategy and how we engage, interact, and show up on college campuses.
So with athletics, what was it? 2021, I believe.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yep.
Megan Eisenhard: Kind of the whole world changed from a collegiate athletics standpoint. And NIL for anyone who doesn't know stands for name, image, and likeness. And so in 2021, student athletes can now make money off their own name, image, and likeness.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Surprise. Yes.
Megan Eisenhard: Being done before 2021, but at least it became legal in 2021. To go and come up with ways that they can enhance their experience. And if they're out there, it's student athlete, the life of a student athlete is quite interesting, but we can talk about that later. But we want to be able to support that part of the university community and help them not only achieve their financial goals, but be there to help guide them along the way. And NIL is a great mix between what we do fundamentally and how we can help at least one population of this student segment to get better at understanding their financial journey.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Do you think that, you know, that's a, you make a point, you know, if I'm a student athlete and I'm good, right? Because I think that companies now are looking to throw cash at these athletes. What do I do with this money? What is it like coming to me in a check or a briefcase or a wire transfer? If I do get it, what do I do with it? How do I invest it? You know, I'm just going to go by myself Lamborghini like what there's so much. I mean, and you hear it even with professional athletes who didn't have the financial literacy training, who are broke 10 years after they made millions of dollars, right?
This is now you're giving money to you can give it to a professional athlete who didn't have who didn't have the financial literacy, but at least that person has has gone through some college at that point. Most of the time. Now you're giving it to someone who is new potentially into college with maybe I mean, zero literacy or I mean, just the amount of money you could get in a short period of time and not know to do with it. This is a could be a crisis down the road for for student athletes.
Megan Eisenhard: Absolutely. I mean, student athletes have a lot of challenges and granted they have a lot of benefits as well, but the whole mental aspect of the student athlete experience is real. Not only from performing, but time management. And now to add just kind of financial questions in their mind of like, I am going to get a large sum of money. What am I supposed to do with it? And again, I've learned that let's see, lots of generation Z get their information now from TikTok and Instagram.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, a little bit of YouTube too.
Megan Eisenhard: So imagine if a student is like, I just got money. I'm going to go to TikTok and I'm going to go invest it in something. And then it's gone.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Crypto?
Megan Eisenhard: Yeah. Correct. Could be one element, right? And so we want to be able to help guide them. And ultimately it is their decision. But we want to be there and support them and make sure that they have the right information to make the right decision.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: It's actually pretty fascinating when you think about it. Like, what would you do at 18 if you were given a couple million dollars? And, you know, I mean, you really think about that and how you could make mistakes as a kid, too. You know, and as an athlete with so many competing priorities, like you got to perform in your sport, you got to take this money, you got to try to invest it or spend it or. I mean, it is really interesting to see how that works. What's being said out there amongst universities right now, Megan? I mean, what are you hearing? Financial troubles, sustainability issues. I mean, you know, there's a lot of things that you can do as a credit union too in terms of loans and help to universities, right? What's the general consensus out there about what's happening in colleges and universities that you hear?
Megan Eisenhard: I wish I could give one answer, but as you know, it's all universities and snowflakes. They all have their own challenges and each group's a little bit different. You know, what students want and what staff want and what faculty want and what alumni want. It's quite different. I would say from a faculty staff perspective, especially staff, we mainly focus in California. I'd say a big need is affordable housing.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah. Big time. California.
Megan Eisenhard: Yeah. So that is a big concern from a lot of our California universities is if I'm a staff member and I'm making a certain amount, but the average home price is a million dollars, like how can I even do this? How can I save? How can I, do I just rent? Do I buy a house? And so I'd say affordable housing has been quite the hot topic in California.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: I was talking to a, just sorry to interrupt you, but I was talking to a president from California. It's I'm losing it who it was, but she was in San Jose and she was talking about how recruiting talent to come there is super impossible because somebody gets there and they expect to just going to walk in and find a house. I don't think so. First of all, if you can find one, good luck. But then to afford it. Even better. It's so there's so many homeless in California and it's due to the affordable housing and in many respects. So what a great call out that is because that is hard to recruit and keep talent in California.
Megan Eisenhard: Yeah, absolutely. So and then from the student perspective, you know, there are a lot of students that have side hustles, quite honestly, that, you know, they're going to school, but they have a job and they might have a second job. And so, again, it is really basic of just how do I budget? How do I build my credit? I think that's another thing that we're hearing a lot is from students when they, they're just trying to start their financial journey. And what's interesting is there are rules against financial institutions promoting credit cards. So we don't go in and talk about credit cards because a lot of bad stuff happened in the past. But we do want to talk about credit and how to build credit and how to make sure that you're doing the right things at 18, 19 to set yourself up for future success. So I'd say credits, affordable housing. And then just, again, the overall, the feeling of having control over your finances is huge. Again, it fits into the whole mental aspect of what students and honestly, everybody is dealing with right now. So again, how do you feel good about your finances so you can be successful in life?
Dr. Joe Sallustio: So quick story, I am a recipient of a college credit card. I was on my campus, State University of New York campus, and I was probably going out to a bar. I think I was 21. I was like, I'll just get a credit card. I mean, no big deal. Picked up a visa, shout out to Visa. I picked up a visa, $11,000 later because it was my junior year, so junior and senior year, I was just like, I'll just put on my credit card. So I started charging everything. I carried that $11,000 balance till I was 28. By the time, I think it must've been 28 and I got some kind of bonus at work or something and I was like, finally, I could pay off this $11,000 that has been haunting me forever. Of course, I probably fit 50 grand at an APR of like 47%, right? And I didn't know. I was like, wow, I get a credit card. And yeah, I mean, there's distinct reasons around why that happens. It put me in a bad sit. It was my own doing. It's my own fault. But I didn't know what I was doing. And so to your point now, years later, NIL kind of is that it's like this new thing where money is coming in a different form, but you have all that same lack of education. It really is interesting how things are cyclical and coming back in different ways, right?
Megan Eisenhard: A hundred percent. The other interesting trend is just how people make payments these days. If you look and there's some stat of, if you look on someone's phone, there's like 50 different ways that money passes through somewhere. Like the Starbucks app, the Venmo, you know, there's just all these different things that you think of that aren't money related, but they are. And before, 20 years ago, someone just had a card and that's what they used to pay everything. And now there's multiple ways of paying for things, how you pay for it, how the money's transferred. And if you can't keep track of all of it, it can get out of control very quickly.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, it's like, I was talking to someone the other day and I said, it's like a day-to-day cruise line card, right? Because back in the old days, when you go on a cruise ship, you'd get the just the credit you did say, you know, you could just charge all these things and at the end will bill you. So you just rack everything up. Now you do that to yourself. A dollar ninety-nine at a time. Go to any app on your phone. You could do a little micro payment. Not a dollar ninety-nine dollars. I know because my wife, my wife is like, what is this golf smash game that you're playing for a dollar ninety-nine?
Megan Eisenhard: Yeah.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: So twenty dollars later, bought a couple of songs on Apple. You're right, that money can disappear in front of you. And there's an important discipline factor we have to have around our financials now. Artificial intelligence is here. You're right. There's Venmo and Cash App and Zelle. And there's so many ways that money is moving. And you can move it without even knowing it. And if you're 18 and getting a deal, an NIL deal, that money can move pretty fast away from you, which is the exact opposite way we would want it to go, right?
Megan Eisenhard: And then it also carries on. So it's not only are we talking to students about this, but for adults as well. And if you look at everything and then if you look at all your different loans, I mean, another area we talked about, like, what do we focus on? It's loan consolidation because we could probably get you a better rate if you consolidate your loans and do one with us versus if you're paying five different loans at high interest rates. And so that's another area where we talk to all groups about.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: I like to focus on university professionals. I like that a lot because we do so much in higher education to serve students and we have faculty, staff, no one ever came into higher ed and said, I'm gonna be a billionaire. And I'm gonna be the world's first higher education billionaire. That doesn't exist, right? There's in education in the ecosphere of higher ed from teacher all the way up to professor or administrator in higher ed, there's many jobs that are not high paying, but we do it because we have a passion for it. And so to have some kind of financial advantage feels right. Feels like there's an appreciation for the work that we do. Well, we know none of us are going to get super rich. We're not going to be Elon Musk by working in higher ed. That has to make you feel good, right? Like that's the point of the University Credit Union.
Megan Eisenhard: Absolutely. And not only can we help all these different groups, we give back to the university community. So food insecurity is another focus of ours. So we're constantly giving back to the food pantries within the schools we work with. We give back by staff scholarships. That's another area. Again, looking at groups that might need a little more service and attention. Staff are the unsung heroes of the university landscape, in my opinion. And so how can we do more to make sure that they're getting what they need to support everything that happens on those campuses. So we like to look at other ways, not only by helping individual by individual, but the university or school.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: 100%. We always like to end our episodes with the same two questions to every guest. Megan, first one, we call it the open mic moment. What else do you want to say about University Credit Union? Anything that we didn't cover, anything else that you want to say, anything coming up, take us away, take a minute or two. Anything you want to say?
Megan Eisenhard: I think two things. So number one, as I mentioned before, look into credit unions. I think credit union as an industry is pretty amazing and I've only been in this industry for a year. And so again, I'm learning a lot as well, but look into credit unions. I just implore everyone to look at the amazing things that credit unions can do for you. Number two, University Credit Union. We're just excited to serve the university community and to be innovative and thoughtful and always be learning. And so it's just great to be in this space.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: I love it. That's great. No, that's, and what kind of industry did you come from? Did you come from banking?
Megan Eisenhard: I went to college sports.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Wow.
Megan Eisenhard: I worked in college sports for 20 years. And so I've seen first-year NIL totally change the landscape of college sports and University Credit Union I worked with. So I met our CEO when we were doing some deals together and he's been trying to recruit me for a while to come to this side. And I kind of had a break in my career and said, hey, let's try something new, but let's stay in the higher ed space. I am just in debt to higher education and what it's done for me and my family. And so to be able to give back in a different way has been really fun.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: So I see you got your, most of your education in California and now you're in Colorado. I mean, let's do an either or here. Megan, Colorado or California.
Megan Eisenhard: Colorado.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Colorado. Yeah. It was an easy, I mean, there wasn't even a moment's hesitation. Why, why is that? What's...
Megan Eisenhard: We talked about affordability in California. That's one thing. But I love visiting Colorado, my family or California, my family's still there. And so it always has a special place in my heart, but I have two boys and I think my family loves being active. And so to be minutes from so much outdoor adventure here, it is amazing. So Colorado is my new friend.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Before we give you the final question for anybody that doesn't know Golden Colorado is like 10 minutes away from the mountains, you go ski and snowboard and do mountain biking, anything to hike about 15, 18 minutes away from downtown Denver. It's kind of like right in the most perfect location. It's one of the most perfect locations that I, that I see. I love it.
Megan Eisenhard: Yeah. It really sucks. And golden never moved to golden Colorado. Everyone.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: So, so it is really nice though. What do you see for the future of higher education, Megan?
Megan Eisenhard: The future of higher education has to be to continue to propel our nation forward. We have to be learners. We have to be critical thinkers. We have to be the human element of everything that's going to happen in the future. And the place that keeps the learning space sacred is in higher education. So the future is we need to have it, but we just might need to change the way that we think about it so that we are prepared with all of these future challenges.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Well said. I want to thank you for your time today, Megan. Ladies and gentlemen, there she is. She's Megan Eisenhard. She's the chief growth officer for University Credit Union. She's asking you not to move to Golden, Colorado because it's terrible and the weather sucks and all that. No, she's amazing. And Megan, we've had a great time having you on. We really appreciate the work that you're doing to serve higher ed. We work hard in this industry. And to have someone say, we're trying to give you a financial competitive advantage, that feels really nice. And I'm glad that we could tell our audience about it.
Megan Eisenhard: Yeah. And thank you. I love what you're doing. Almost 900 episodes. You all are crushing it. Keep it up. Keep elevating what people are doing on campuses. Keep up the great work.
Dr. Joe Sallustio: Thank you so much. We'll talk about my NIL deal in a separate episode. Thank you, Megan. Ladies and gentlemen, you've just ed-upped.