Center for Financial Literacy and Investment

The Center for Financial Literacy and Investment (CFLI), housed within the College of Business, Engineering, and Technology (CBET), was established in 2023 with the help of Better East Texas (BET) funding and is committed to increasing financial literacy and investment education among the region's students, faculty, staff, and communities. Our Bloomberg Finance lab, a resource provided by CFLI, is where students analyze real-time market data and earn the Bloomberg Market Concepts (BMC) certification. The Lab allows faculty to integrate financial literacy and investment education into the curriculum to bring the real world into the classroom. This tool helps our students to understand finance, financial markets, and investment strategy, as well as learn the necessary skill sets to interact with other finance professionals in banks, corporations, and government agencies and gain employment in the field of finance.  

Initiatives of the CFLI, in collaboration with CBET’s Department of Accounting, Economics, and Finance, also includes establishing a Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF) and a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program to assist low-income households file their income taxes.  

The current plans for CFLI include offering non-credit courses, webinars, and workshops for the university community as well as external constituents, community, and region.

Vision:

The Center for Financial Literacy and Investment will be the preeminent conduit for financial literacy and investment knowledge in East Texas by providing learning and teaching resources to enrich lives and advance the financial expertise of local businesses in the region.

Mission:

The Center for Financial Literacy and Investment provides students, local businesses, and the community in East Texas with innovative financial literacy tools and education in investment to prepare them to make wise financial decisions and improve their lives.

Initiatives of the Center

A primary goal of the Center is to enhance and improve the standard of living across the region. We recognize that a critical factor impacting social mobility is a lack of knowledge of basic personal financial and personal free market economic principles that often lead to poor financial decisions. Therefore, the Center will answer the need for financial literacy education in the region in an effort to enhance knowledge of basic financial understanding and skill sets. One of the most significant efforts of the CFLI is to change behaviors related to personal money management to become better fiscal managers and encourage savings for personal wealth.

• Education Programs. The CFLI will provide financial literacy programs online and face-to-face workshops and classes on campus and at various locations throughout the community.
• Financial Planning Clubs. Students, faculty, and university staff, as well as business and community organizations will be able to create their own financial planning clubs to learn about financial literacy, retirement, and personal investments. A unique activity is a trading simulation using virtual money to train users to enter various types of trades in financial assets.
• Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF). Participating students will manage investment portfolios using real money and collaborate closely with finance faculty and financial professionals. To find out more, click here.
• Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA). Trained volunteers assist students, faculty, staff, and the larger community and region with tax preparation.
• Research. TAMUT faculty will collaborate on research related to financial literacy, economics, and banking focused on the East Texas region.