Group educates students on loan, credit-card debt

A man donned in flowing gold robes, a graduation cap and sunglasses stood proudly in front… A man donned in flowing gold robes, a graduation cap and sunglasses stood proudly in front of a crowd of college students motivating them to take action and save themselves from a future of financial misery. His name: the Consolidator. His motto: Hasta la vista, debt!

Pros in Motion, a student marketing agency from Pitt’s College of Business Administration, conducted two “Debt-inator” seminars Wednesday in Sennott Square to teach students that it is not as difficult as it may seem to secure loans and finance their educations without graduating from college buried in debt.

Pros in Motion is a projects in marketing class hired by Goal Financial, a national lender of student loans, in a nation-wide competition aimed at getting marketing students to educate their peers about different types of loans and debt consolidation.

“College is tough. Financing it shouldn’t be” were the words printed on the gold Goal Financial T-shirts worn by the participants in the student marketing agency.

“This seminar is important for kids who could have debt problems after they graduate,” Mike Long, the student in charge of the campaign strategy department of Pros in Motion, said.

Long introduced Dee Baldus and Jeff Hober, representatives from Goal Financial.

“We offer everything from scholarships to loans to consolidation,” Baldus said. “There actually is life after you graduate, believe it or not.”

Baldus lectured on credit-card management and ways to avoid credit-card debt.

Hober spoke about differences in various types of loans and how consolidation can significantly lower debts.

“Consolidation is definitely the way to kick your debt,” Hober said.

Bob Gilbert, a professor in the School of Business, teaches the projects in marketing class and discussed the ways in which his students benefit from this innovative mode of education.

“This course gives the students a chance to put their knowledge to use in a real world setting and create their own marketing agency,” Gilbert said. “They get to experience the real world in a three-credit marketing class.”

Gilbert said about 20 students are admitted in to the class each semester based on their GPA and other coursework, and the students this semester are competing with New York University, Illinois, Temple, George Washington University and Colorado to create the best marketing campaigns. Representatives from the top two schools will be taken to the Goal Financial headquarters in Santiago, Chile, to present their campaigns to Goal Financial’s senior managers.

Andrew Reichert, the student coordinator of Pros in Motion, said the turn-out of the two seminars was much larger than expected.

“We had a large, unanticipated audience of about 100 people total in both seminars,” Reichert said. “It seemed like they benefited immensely from the presentation.”

Tim Makin, the student who posed as the Consolidator, Goal Financial’s superhero mascot, took pictures with audience members at the conclusion of the seminar while boxes of free pizza were presented to the students.

“It was truly a humbling experience to take on the role of The Consolidator,” Makin said while chatting with fans. “He is a gentleman and a scholar, a selfless hero and a savior of debt management.”