LIU’s Roc Nation School, Chase to offer financial health course
Students attending the Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment at Long Island University now have the chance to enroll in a financial health course, designed to teach them how to keep the money they make after they start their careers in the entertainment industry.
Well-paying jobs in music, sports business and sports management can on average pay anywhere between $44,000 and $140,000, reports the All Business Schools blog.
But earning income and keeping it are two different things. Roc Nation School’s new financial health class is designed to show students the world of finance in a way that makes them understand how money works in their own lives.
The three-credit, 16-week course called “Game-Changing Finance,” taught in partnership with JPMorgan Chase, teaches the foundational elements of finances at a personal level: students learn money management, how credit works, how to save for and buy a home, and how to identify financial scams.
Roc Nation School was created with the backing of rapper-entrepreneur, Jay-Z, and his Roc Nation entertainment company in partnership with Long Island University. The school gives students the opportunity to learn about artist and athlete management, one of the businesses Jay-Z has made his fortune in. This is a business that not everyone has the opportunity to break into. But the Roc Nation School is trying to widen the scope for future players in the market: It gives 25% of its incoming freshmen class Roc Nation Hope Scholarships which allow students to attend the school tuition free and graduate without any debt.
“We really have this goal of creating the most innovative and practical education in entertainment,” said Tressa Cunningham, dean of the Roc Nation School. “I think the entertainment industry is notoriously hard to break into, and so what better way to set students up for success than to give them the skills that they need to thrive and develop right into the entertainment industry.”
The “Game-Changing Finance” class is designed to meet students at the level they’re at in terms of their own financial health journey, as they begin to launch their careers in the entertainment industry.
JPMorgan Chase is partnering with Roc Nation to teach this class. The bank is providing a $350,000 financial investment in the program, while also conducting workshops and bringing community bank managers to join the class at least once a week to talk about finances. Instead of using bank jargon, bank managers provide students with real life examples of how to manage their money, discuss practical skills like learning the difference between a want and a need, and look at ways to manage credit wisely, said Nichol King, the executive director of community banking at JPMorgan Chase. “Growing up,” she said, “for a lot of college students and particularly students from communities of color, finances are not something that’s spoken about at the dinner table. So this class is just really breaking the myths and the fears and having those candid conversations on how to manage your money.
“We’ve got a deep bench and a lot of internal expertise,” King added. JPMorgan Chase brings wealth management advisors in to join the class and teach investor education basics like the definition of a stock and how bonds function. The class also features celebrities the students can relate to, including former New York Giants’ wide receiver Victor Cruz, who come in and talk about their financial journeys and the lessons they’ve learned in money management. “We believe that by providing content that’s relevant to them, that allows them to identify with sports figures and people that look like them, that their education is going to be rooted. They’re going to be able to take that knowledge and really carry it on with them, beyond college.”
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