Student-run school branches fueled a nearly fourfold membership surge
In 2011, Atomic Credit Union had approximately 25,000 members and a question it needed to answer: How could a credit union in rural southern Ohio stand apart from the competition, grow its member base, and deepen its roots in the communities it served?
The answer came in the form of a student-run credit union program that placed working branches inside local schools, staffed by student volunteers, and overseen by paid Atomic employees. Fourteen years later, Atomic is approaching 89,000 members, adds roughly 1,000 new members per month, and holds $869 million in assets. And earlier this year, the program's influence reached the Ohio statehouse.
In 2025, Governor Mike DeWine signed Ohio's biennial operating budget, which included an amendment allowing school boards to adopt policies permitting students to fulfill part of the state's mandatory 60-hour financial literacy requirement through participation in a credit union or bank branch program. The amendment was a direct result of Atomic's 14-year track record.
The credit union was subsequently invited as a stakeholder by the Ohio Department of Education as it develops implementation guidelines, and Atomic has already submitted a draft policy for consideration.
“We’re actually part of teaching the students and getting their degree,” said Thomas D. Griffiths, Atomic’s president and CEO. “We’re very excited about that next step,” he added, referring to the pending implementation rules that would allow Atomic's program to formally count toward students' required financial literacy hours.
Building the program one school at a time
About 15 years ago, Griffiths came across an article about a school-based credit union in another state and began thinking about what a fully committed version of that idea might look like. Ohio law already permitted credit unions to establish in-school branches, as long as a paid representative was on site. What he observed elsewhere underwhelmed him.
“Other credit unions were touting, ‘We go in there once a month,’” he said. “But kids learn by repetition, and we’ve got to be there. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right,” he remembers setting as an objective.
Atomic launched in the 2011-2012 school year within the Jackson City Schools, becoming the first credit union in Ohio to open a student-run branch inside an elementary school. Expansion was deliberate but steady. Andy Eisnaugle, who joined the program in 2014 as vice president of financial education and has overseen it for 12 years, recalled the early shape of the network.
“When I came on board, we had about eight student-run credit unions,” he said. “From there it was really just five to 10 schools a year that we’ve expanded consistently.”
Today, the program spans 38 school districts and 96 buildings across 13 counties in southern Ohio, a footprint stretching more than 100 miles end to end. Each branch operates on a fixed weekly schedule, with an Atomic staff member present and equipment stored permanently at the school.
A workforce of more than 1,000 student volunteers
The student workforce mirrors the structure of a real financial institution. Students in the highest grade at each school can apply for roles as tellers, member service representatives, bookkeepers, or data entry specialists. They are interviewed, placed based on the interview, and trained before the branch opens for the year.
During the 2024-2025 school year, 977 student volunteers processed 41,814 transactions, helping student members save more than $276,000 in Atomic CU accounts. This school year, that number rose to 1,094 student volunteers across 98 schools, ranging from 4th graders in elementary buildings to seniors in high school.
Twenty of Atomic’s 48 student-run program staff members are high school students themselves, hired through a formal job-placement initiative. The staffing model has become a pipeline. More than 60 people who first encountered Atomic through the program now work for the credit union, including a branch manager who started as a student volunteer at a vocational school.
“Credit union day” has also become a cultural fixture in the schools it touches. “I’ve had teachers tell us that a student who didn’t want to come to school on Monday is excited on Tuesday because that’s credit union day,” Griffiths said. (Each school designates a day or two per week when credit union activity takes place.)
Membership growth rooted in community trust
The membership impact extends well beyond the students themselves. Parents and grandparents join to fund the accounts their children are opening. The program has also done what many credit unions struggle to accomplish: It has meaningfully lowered Atomic’s average member age.
“It’s brought a new wave of young students who are now young adults into our credit union,” Eisnaugle said. “When we go places, people say, ‘Oh, you’re that Atomic Credit Union that does the student-run program.’ It sets us apart.”
One measure of the program’s depth is a young woman who grew up in a difficult home environment, raised by her grandmother in southern Ohio, opened her first Atomic account as a high school student, and deposited her paychecks week to week. She went to college, became a preschool teacher, and today walks her own students down the hallway to make deposits at the same credit union that helped her build her first financial habits. Griffiths described her story as representative of a generation of members the program has shaped.
The credit union has also built a student advisory board, now in its third year, composed of eight high school members drawn from across the service area. The board meets with Atomic’s executive team and board members to provide direct feedback on the program and on what younger members need from their financial institution. One board member flagged the absence of any banking facility in her town of South Webster, Ohio. Atomic responded by installing a standalone ATM on the local school grounds.
Legislative reach and a digital curriculum on deck
The policy achievement that led to the state budget amendment was the work of Aaron Michael, Atomic’s COO and chief legal counsel, operating through the credit union’s political action committee—one of only two maintained by a credit union in Ohio. The amendment that passed directs the Ohio Department of Education to define the standards a branch program must meet to qualify for financial literacy credit, and Atomic is positioned to help write those standards.
On the curriculum side, the credit union is partnering with fintech company Goalsetter to develop a digital financial literacy platform, which Atomic plans to beta test in at least three schools in fall 2026. The initiative is a response to a gap Eisnaugle has observed across the 38 school districts the credit union serves: Many teachers are required to deliver financial education but lack the training to do it effectively.
The program’s reach has also opened doors with elected officials. U.S. Sen. Jon Husted visited during his time as Ohio’s lieutenant governor, and his firsthand experience has since informed conversations with state and national leaders. Ohio’s current state treasurer, who is strongly supportive of credit unions, according to Michael, has cited the program publicly after his own visit. Michael observed that the credibility built through those visits changes the dynamic in policy meetings.
What it costs and what it returns
Atomic invests approximately $1.5 million annually in the program, covering staff salaries and the equipment maintained at each school location. The agreements with school districts are non-exclusive. Any competing institution could enter with a similar offering. None has.
“Since 2011, from day one, we had people complaining about it,” Griffiths said of opposition from local banks. “If you want to come in and offer something similar, you’re welcome to do that. They don’t want to put their money where their mouth is.”
From southern Ohio schools to the national stage
The program that began in three southern Ohio school buildings in 2011 has earned recognition at the highest levels of national financial policy. Last week, Griffiths joined Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould, NCUA Chairman Kyle Hauptman, and FDIC Chairman Travis Hill in Washington, D.C., for a national financial literacy roundtable hosted by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, moderated by Special Assistant to President Trump, Emory Cox.
Griffiths highlighted Atomic's student-run program as a model for experiential financial education, and roundtable discussions are expected to inform broader conversations at the G20 Summit later this year. Griffiths, also the author of "Financial Literacy for All," captured the moment this way: "It was an honor to participate in this discussion alongside national financial leaders and contribute to conversations that will help shape the future of financial education not only in Ohio, but across the country and internationally."
