announced today the winner of its $25,000 #CrushStudentDebt Sweepstakes. The winner, randomly selected from thousands of entrants, is Katie Tressel, a junior at Bellarmine University. The winnings will pay off student loans from her freshman and sophomore years, as well as most of her upcoming loans for her junior year.
| Katie Tressel, left, stands with Bellarmine's Vice President for Enrollment Management, Sean Ryan, at an announcement of Tressel's contest win. |
Tressel is a junior at 农夫导航 studying psychology and music. Although the private university awarded Tressel multiple scholarships, she has borrowed the maximum limit of federal student loans each year, based on her grade level, and is accumulating student debt. An incredibly hard worker, Tressel goes to school full-time, works 8-hour shifts at McDonald鈥檚 during the weekends, and always studies late鈥攁ll in pursuit of becoming a music therapist. It鈥檚 a career path Katie hopes will allow her to help traumatized children. When asked how she reacted when she found out she was the winner, Tressel said, 鈥淚've never won anything. It was kind of a shock at first. Now I just feel relieved. Music therapists don鈥檛 make that much, so I was thinking I鈥檇 have to work a second job after graduation to afford my student loan payments, but maybe now that won鈥檛 be necessary.鈥�
Tressel heard about the $25,000 #CrushStudentDebt sweepstakes from the Bellarmine University . "At Bellarmine, we're always mindful of the difficult decisions students and their families face regarding student loans and college selection," said Sean Ryan, vice president for enrollment management at 农夫导航. 鈥淚n addition to awarding scholarships and helping our students find grants, our staff is always on the lookout for anything we can do to help our students avoid debt, or if loans are necessary, better manage and pay their loans down. When we heard about the #CrushStudentDebt sweepstakes, we shared it with our students right away. We鈥檙e just ecstatic that one of them won!鈥�
Tressel will be honored today at an event at 农夫导航 today at 2 pm, where executives from SimpleTuition will present her with the prize.
The $25,000 #CrushStudentDebt sweepstakes took place last spring as part of the launch of SmarterBucks Rewards and SmarterBank, both new products created by Boston-based SimpleTuition. A revolutionary new rewards program, SmarterBucks allows members to earn cash-back rewards that are used to pay down any student loan. The SmarterBank checking account provides an additional opportunity to earn rewards on everyday purchases with its SmarterBank Visa庐 Debit card. Based on the positive response to the #CrushStudentDebt sweepstakes, the company has also announced that all members of its free SmarterBucks program will be eligible for a monthly giveaway of $1,000 in student loan payments.
鈥淲ith the $25,000 #CrushStudentDebt sweepstakes we were able to make a difference for one student,鈥� added Walker. 鈥淏ut with SmarterBucks and SmaterBank, we鈥檙e working hard to have a lasting impact on millions of students by getting them out of debt faster so they can get on with life.鈥�