CNM Student Chosen to Attend 2019 Aspen ThinkXChange Conference
Megan will represent CNM at the 2019 Aspen ThinkXChange conference in October.

CNM Student Chosen to Attend 2019 Aspen ThinkXChange Conference

Megan Bell-Rodriguez will travel to Aspen, Colo., to speak at the 2019 Aspen Institute ThinkXChange conference that will focus on advancing family prosperity.
August 28, 2019

Life hasn’t always been easy for business student Megan Bell-Rodriguez. After escaping a bad domestic situation, she chose to enroll at CNM to create a brighter future for her and her daughter.

“We were not in a good place,” she says. “But when I was finally able to get out of that situation, I decided I wanted to do something good for me and my daughter, so I came back to school.”

 Megan says that returning to school later in life was a challenge, but she wanted to show her daughter that with hard work and dedication, anything is possible. In addition to her required course work for CNM’s associate degree program in Business Administration, Megan enrolled in a new course that helped hone her financial literacy skills.

CNM was awarded a grant funded by Ascend – The Aspen Institute that is used to create a multigenerational approach to financial literacy and homework support.

The Family Financial Literacy course at CNM is designed to educate students on the basics of money management and financial skills that will help them avoid financial pitfalls. The course is interactive and covers fiscal responsibility concepts including budgeting, managing money, borrowing money and planning for the future.

“The class was great. It helped me a lot,” Megan says. “I learned so many useful concepts about budgeting and saving for the future. I’d love to be able to take my daughter to Disney World someday and this class has helped move that goal closer.”

Megan smiles as she shows us the tattoo of her daughter's love note.

The Family Financial Literacy course allows single parents to bring their children with them to campus. While the parents are in class, CNM provides free tutoring and homework help for the kids. As part of the program, free dinners are provided for the parents and children.

Megan was recently selected to attend and speak at the 2019 Aspen ThinkXChange: Advancing Family Prosperity conference. She says she’s excited to share her experience at CNM with the folks at the Aspen Institute.

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. 

“I’m going to talk about the family financial literacy class and how it really helped me as a single mother. It’s going to be so cool,” Megan says. “It’s crazy to think that I am going to be representing CNM in such a high capacity, but I am truly honored by this opportunity.”

Learn more about CNM’s Business programs.