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MU
Has National Bankruptcy Counseling Center
MU's Office for Financial Success
Takes Calls from the Nation
By Jennifer Faddis
Federal law requires people who want to file
bankruptcy to seek financial counseling first. Now, the University
of Missouri-Columbia's Office
for Financial Success has earned the right to provide such
counseling to the nation.
“This is an important designation for
us,” said Rob Weagley, chair of the Department
of Personal Financial Planning in the MU College
of Human Environmental Sciences. “We not only generate
revenue to support our students attending conferences and to fund
student scholarships, but we engage our students in counseling
to actually apply communication skills that are crucial to the
financial services industry.”
Mark Oleson, director of the Office for Financial
Success, said it is valuable to consumers that bankruptcy counseling
comes from an unbiased source. Consumers are bombarded with advertisements
for loan consolidation and other debt management products; he
believes that a “product-free” counseling environment
is important.
“In cases where someone has been a victim
of fraud, counseling provides an opportunity to help someone determine
exactly what steps are needed,” Oleson said. “Prior
to the new law, a client could walk through the bankruptcy steps
without needing to first determine if that is indeed the best
course of action.”
Many people who are preparing to file for
bankruptcy only look at the short term, Oleson said. While a bankruptcy
filing often will eliminate most debt and stop creditors from
calling, it doesn't necessarily solve the long-term problems.
For example, if unemployment continues and the bills accumulate
again, the person who filed will be right back in the same situation
in a matter of months. Once someone has filed for bankruptcy,
he or she is prohibited from doing so again for six years.
“There has been an upward trend in the
number of people filing for bankruptcy, and only education can
stop the cycle,” said Oleson, assistant professor in the
College of Human Environmental Sciences Department of
Personal Financial Planning. “In the past, if someone filed
for bankruptcy, they were more likely to file again because spending
habits, or other factors that led to bankruptcy, had not changed.
It can become an unending cycle. Hopefully, the new law with a
required education component can end the cycle.”
MU is the only university in the nation
to be approved for nationwide pre-filing bankruptcy counseling
by the U.S. Trustees Office.
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Last Update:
March 12, 2007
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