In a job market that’s being touted as one of the toughest markets in years, college students need every advantage they can get to succeed. For Taylor Payton, a 2025 graduate from Bowie State University, that advantage was the Center for Financial Advancement® (CFA). While many of Payton’s peers have struggled to find a job, Payton landed a job offer with Wells Fargo by graduation. Payton will be working in the company’s Wealth & Investment Management division. Here’s how CFA helped her accomplish that.
Payton, who received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing, first learned about CFA as a freshman. Through CFA, HomeFree-USA joins with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to recruit, train, and place students into internships and careers in partnering mortgage, real estate, and financial services companies. In addition to gaining professional experience, participating CFA Scholars learn about credit, money management, and homeownership so they can become savvy consumers and future homeowners.
“I was already interested in real estate and finance,” Payton says, so CFA seemed like the perfect fit. But little did she know that she would come away with skills that would give her a leg up in her professional career.
As a CFA Scholar, Payton gained access to mentors in the financial services industry. She also participated in the Learn2Earn Summer Professional Development and Internship Program where she received valuable internships at such organizations as Wells Fargo, Caterpillar, and HomeFree-USA.
One of the biggest highlights of her CFA experience was participating in the #IYKYK Pitch Competition, powered by Experian’s B.A.L.L. for Life initiative. Through the competition, student teams were challenged to create a solution that would help college graduates pay off student debt within five years. The team from Bowie State took the top prize, earning $40,000 in scholarship money for their idea of creating an app that would give users practical ways to save money and pay down debt. What made the app stand out was its multigenerational approach, as it provided advice not only to the students but to their parents and other generations as well. “It would basically give you options that you may not have known about,” Payton says.
Payton encourages other students to consider the financial services industry no matter their major. “Nobody thinks about marketing in unconventional spaces like finance,” she says. Yet she has found so much opportunity there.
As Payton begins the next chapter of her career, she is adamant that her success is not hers alone. She’s grateful for the opportunities made available by so many financial services companies. She also appreciates the guidance of CFA. “I had so much support from HomeFree-USA and CFA,” she says. “I love them for it.”
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