Newsletter Spotlight March 2026

The CFP Board Registered Program offered at California State University Chico — also known as Chico State — may be new, but on-campus financial planning classes are already full to capacity. 

Program Director Jaycob Arbogast, CFP® employs many exciting strategies to engage students, including a financial wellness clinic where students gain valuable experience helping their peers create budgets and develop plans for paying student loan debt. 

The clinic, which serves around 300 clients annually, also assists university employees and low-income families in the community. Through clinic work, financial planning students hone their problem-solving skills while learning how to interact with clients to help them solve real-world problems. Clients face a wide range of issues, from simple to complex, with some in dire circumstances.

Arbogast, who was instrumental in launching the clinic, feels so strongly about its benefits for financial planning students that he recommends every CFP Board Registered Program have one.

How the Clinic Serves Students and the Community

Every year, Arbogast chooses financial planning students to work in the financial wellness clinic. This year, grant funding enabled him to hire six students he calls “paraplanners” because that term bolsters their resumes and the experience helps set them up for success after graduation. This includes giving them talking points when asked about client work during job interviews.

“I try to structure the clinic to be as similar to the real world as possible, and I purposely try to get my student staff to treat their clientele like a book of business, except that in our case, it’s free. When they’re out in the real world, they’re going to be managing their own clients and making sure they’re following up,” he said.

The vast majority of the clinic’s clients, a mix of individuals and families, are seeking help with credit counseling, debt repayment or budgeting. Clients set up appointments through Microsoft Bookings, then they either select a specific paraplanner or have one assigned. Notes are taken during the client interaction, and every client leaves a meeting with next steps and sometimes with a follow-up appointment.

Arbogast says he has three rules for students on giving advice: “They can’t prepare taxes. They can’t give specific investment advice, and they can’t give legal advice.” He is copied on the notes the student sends the client after their meeting, and he also holds a weekly meeting with students to review client-student interactions as well as address opportunities for improvement.

Local CFP® professionals sometimes refer people to the clinic because of their firm’s client minimum requirements, or when a client’s concerns are outside of the professional’s area of expertise. They often refer clients who need help setting up student loan repayment plans, for example.

Likewise, clients who don’t qualify for the clinic are referred to registered investment adviser (RIA) partners in Chico, which is located in Northern California. Many of these same partners help coach students in the financial planning program, serve as guest speakers, provide internships or support students in other ways.

“We're also supported by the Foundation for Financial Planning,” Arbogast said. “They were vital in helping our program to expand to the local community, beyond just our student clients. We posted a volunteer opportunity on their pro bono planner match tool, and we utilize their training materials to prepare our students for working with underserved communities.”

Financial Wellness Clinic Expansion

The financial wellness clinic at Chico State has been so well received that similar clinics have recently been launched at six other California State University (CSU) campuses, the largest public university system in the U.S. The expansion is funded by a $315,000 grant from the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund. 

Chico State is leading the project by coordinating the services, training participating students from other campuses and developing a new resource hub for each campus to utilize. Each campus received funding to support a program director, student staff and marketing costs. 

The new clinics have launched at Sacramento State, CSU Monterey Bay, CSU Northridge, CSU Fullerton, Sonoma State and CSU Long Beach. (Chico, Sacramento, Monterey, Fullerton and Northridge have CFP Board Registered Programs.)

“We've only just launched these programs this semester, so I don't have any hard data from the other campuses yet, but Chico's program has been operating successfully for a number of years,” Arbogast said.