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Low-Income Students Learn Entrepreneurship at USF
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USF MBA students help NFTE high school students hone their business plans, before the regional business plan competition that's held on campus. |
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For National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship graduate Bret Sweet, the program’s curriculum of teaching business skills to low-income middle school and high school students in the Bay Area was a key factor in deciding to pursue a graduate business degree at the University of San Francisco.
Now, 13 years after graduating from the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), Sweet is a success story, having worked his way up from peddling underground hip-hop cassettes on San Francisco streets to running his own hip-hop music label then a music touring management company, before earning a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting from San Francisco State University. This fall, Sweet begins his second year in the master of business administration program at USF's School of Business and Management (SOBAM).
But, he hasn’t walked away from NFTE. If anything his ties to the nonprofit, where he went on to work as a teacher then teacher trainer, are as strong as ever. Sweet is one of many USF MBA students who regularly raise money for NFTE Bay Area through SOBAM’s charitable initiatives and volunteer and mentor the next NFTE generation – including working with this summer’s cohort of low-income students attending a two-week entrepreneurship camp on campus July 12-25.
Recruited into NFTE at 18 as a recent high school graduate, Sweet says the business and financial literacy skills he learned helped prepare him for business school. “I would go into (SOBAM) classes my first year and say, ‘Oh my God, I studied this at NFTE.’” Of course, the business courses at USF went far beyond the fundamentals he was taught during the two-week NFTE seminar, Sweet said.
Since its inception in 1994, NFTE Bay Area has graduated about 8,000 low-income students like Sweet, while expanding its impact by training about 150 public school teachers and community educators in its curriculum. The results are positive, raising the interest of graduates in attending college and showing initiative as leaders, said Gerald Richards, NFTE Bay Area director.
“A lot of our students have never been to a college campus and don’t realize it’s an option, but NFTE helps to change that mindset,” said Richards, whose organization recently bolstered its relationship with USF by moving into Malloy Hall in June.
About 50 low-income students from around the Bay Area attended this year’s summer camp, called the CA/NFTE Enterprising Youth Technology Biz Camp. The camp curriculum, which can also be taught in “bite-size” blocks throughout the school year, consists of a condensed schedule of eight-hour days over two weeks. Students study economics, research the cost of bringing their product to market, take a field trip to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and hear from marketing, advertising, and technology gurus on what it takes to start their own business.
To graduate, students apply what they learned during the camp to their own business plan: coming up with a product, outlining the costs to bring it to market, finding investors, and estimating profits. The student with the best business plan walks away with a new laptop computer, Richards said.
Last year’s winner developed a business catering to foodies with an online exotic spice market, Richards said.
Ben Shan, another USF MBA student who mentors NFTE students, said that after seeing so many talented, young students in recent years, he’s confident that the skills developed in NFTE help them move on to bigger and better things. “(Students) will definitely take away the experience of meeting so many business experts and presenting to an audience of 60-plus people, which is amazing for someone so young,” he said.
- Originally published July 31, 2008 - 
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