Paychecks, Financial Contracts and Entrepreneurship

(formerly Financial Milestones & Entrepreneurship)
June 23-27, 2008

2008 Early Registration Form (PDF: 42KB/ 1 page)

A student’s first paycheck often shocks. Why was money withheld? First car loans, apartment rentals and home purchases involve legal contracts. Yet, most students face these financial “rites of passage” with little grounding.

During this week you become skilled at teaching a step-by-step approach to managing and understanding these basic-but-vital transactions. You become familiar with experience-based activities such as the Reality Store. It helps your students understand in practical yet fun and engaging ways. Another part of the week focuses on an emerging core feature of our free enterprise system—entrepreneurship. You tour businesses begun by Wisconsin entrepreneurs and talk with them.

Academic directors
Dr. Michael Gutter & Prof. Karen Goebel, University of Wisconsin – Madison

The major requirement for graduate credit will be: 1) provide a lesson plan to teach your students to handle basic financial transactions, or 2) complete a business plan to start up a new business.

You learn from this program how to teach about:

Life’s major financial transactions

• Home buying—the biggest purchase most people ever make
• Renting an apartment
• Car buying—the practical realities behind student dreams

The anatomy of a paycheck and employee benefits

• Social security
• Retirement
• Taxes and withholding—careful planning saves money and builds wealth

Entrepreneurship—creating your own money

• Starting your own business
• Practical lessons of creating money
• The millionaire mindset

Schedule (tentative)

Teacher evaluations from previous Institutes are used every year as the primary tool to fine-tune the Institutes’ syllabus. Newly discovered programs and research also are factors. Changes are expected to the 2007 agendas for 2008 and will be posted in the future.

Class Agenda from 2007 Paychecks, Financial Contracts (PDF: 105 KB / 8 pages)

Cancellation Policy