Recruiting and Retaining College Student Workers as Peer Financial Wellness Mentors

Recruiting and retaining high quality college students to work on campus as part-time student workers remains a persistent, problematic issue (Black & Taylor, 2018; Kim, 2023; Taylor & Black, 2018). Especially difficult is staffing peer financial wellness mentoring programs, requiring both soft and hard skills related to financial wellness (Schuman et al., 2023; Taylor et al., 2021). We conducted purposive sampling with peer financial mentoring programs over a three-year span through professional connections with the Higher Education Financial Wellness Alliance. Participants attended virtual focus groups with peers from their institution, resulting in 22 focus groups with 54 peer mentors across seven institutions. Data revealed three themes: peer financial wellness mentors reported that recruitment methods were multifaceted and included digital and physical information; mentors were retained in their roles because of the flexible, career-oriented nature of their work, and program supervisors were critical in recruiting and retaining mentors.