Harvard offers $12K class for wealthy millennials to learn to invest for good
Harvard offers $12G class for wealthy millennials to learn to invest for good
Harvard is teaching rich, young people how to invest in order to have an impact on the world.
In coordination with the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth at the University of Zurich and the World Economic Forum, Harvard’s Kennedy School is offering a class called “Impact Investing for the Next Generation.” It aims to teach students how to manage family wealth to not only secure their financial futures, but to also bring about changes they would like to see in the world – including social and environmental solutions.
The class centers on the great transition of wealth between generations, with those between the ages of 25 and 40 largely on the receiving end. As previously reported by FOX Business, baby boomers – who are the richest generation in history – will hand down $68.4 trillion over the course of the next 25 years.
The course aims to bring together these “wealth holders of the next generation” and teach them how to deploy their capital for good – through a family office, foundation and/or a personal portfolio.
It includes two workshops and a six-month period of individual and group work, according to Harvard Kennedy School’s Initiative for Responsible Investment.
Students will learn to ask questions of their fund managers and how to talk with their family members about investment decisions they might want to make.
According to the program’s description, some obstacles that prevent people from engaging in impact investing include that it is not perceived as a lucrative strategy and that it is difficult to convince older generations to go against more traditional methods. But many wealthier young people have more liberal social, political, and other values, which the course aims to nurture.
More so than other generations, millennials are also very community-oriented. They may also be more wary of the stock market than previous generations, having grown up through the Great Recession.
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The course costs $12,000, according to a spokesperson for the program. It targets participants are individuals from multi-generational family offices, some of whom have been Harvard students.
The program was initiated in 2015 in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. The fifth iteration of the program begins in October.