Jay-Z’s Shawn Carter Foundation Launches Financial Education Program for HBCUs

Jay-Z’s Shawn Carter Foundation is looking to help out students at historically Black colleges and universities in a major way.

The foundation announced the launch of the Champions for Financial Legacy (CFFL) on Wednesday (Nov. 13). The educational financial initiative was formed in collaboration with the esteemed Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and Toyota North America.

The program will look to empower HBCU students around the country and equip them with the proper tools and resources to improve managing their finances as they enter America’s workforce.

“Every day at the Shawn Carter Foundation, we dedicate ourselves to uplifting students and communities that are underserved,” Jay-Z’s mother, Gloria Carter, who co-founded the foundation, said in a statement. “To launch a financial education program that will reach more students and communities, along with dedicated partners like Toyota and the Wharton School of Business, is a vision we are finally seeing come to fruition. We are so excited to see the incredible impact of CFFL unfold and look forward to its growth.”

Topics covered in the initiative’s curriculum include budgeting, market risks and returns, mutual funds, credit scores, stock markets and much more.

“One way to strengthen the resiliency of middle-class households is to increase their ability to generate wealth,” said Dr. Keith Weigelt, a professor at The Wharton School. “I thank both the Shawn Carter Foundation and Toyota for their foresight in addressing a long-neglected social disparity.”

The Champions for Financial Legacy program will go live in the spring 2025 semester at HBCUs including Lincoln University, Norfolk State University and Virginia State University. Following the first semester, The Shawn Carter Foundation plans to extend its reach to additional schools in the coming years.