Jay-Z’s Shawn Carter Foundation Launches HBCU Champions For Financial Legacy Program

Jay-Z is launching a financial literacy program designed to support HBCU students and their surrounding communities.

Jay-Z’s Shawn Carter Foundation has introduced a financial literacy program designed to empower students at HBCUs along with members of their surrounding communities.

On Wednesday, The Shawn Carter Foundation announced the launch of its Champions for Financial Legacy program in partnership with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The financial education initiative aims to boost students’ financial literacy and equip them with the skills to build wealth within their communities, HuffPost reported.

It will launch in the spring at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Norfolk State University and Virginia State University, before expanding to additional HBCUs in the future. The rapper, real name Shawn Carter, launched his foundation with his mother in 2003, who expressed her pride in launching the financial literacy program.

“Every day at the Shawn Carter Foundation, we dedicate ourselves to uplifting students and communities that are underserved,” Gloria Carter 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.”

She added, “We are so excited to see the incredible impact of CFFL unfold and look forward to its growth.”

Other partners in the Champions for Financial Legacy program include the Coalition for Equity and Opportunity and Toyota Motor North America. It’s a continuation of the more than $20 million The Shawn Carter Foundation has donated to community and scholarship programs dedicated to servicing at-risk youth.

The initiative’s Pennsylvania roots align with another project announced by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation earlier this year — an educational campaign in Philadelphia aimed at helping underprivileged students access private schooling. The Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (PASS) is a proposed legislative initiative aimed at providing $300 million in scholarships for K-12 students from low-income families.

These scholarships would support students attending the state’s lowest-performing public schools. While the campaign faced some criticism, Roc Nation CEO Desiree Perez emphasized the positive intentions behind the effort.