LU offers scholarships for summer finance course

Published 9:37 am Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Longwood University is offering scholarships to Prince Edward County High School students who enroll in its summer online personal finance and economics course, which not only fulfills a requirement for high school graduation but also earns students college credit.

For one month each summer, dozens of area high-school students enroll in the online course and study the intricacies of credit cards, Wall Street, supply and demand, and financial planning.

The new scholarship program will pay the tuition of 10 students who enroll in this summer’s course, which runs from June 20-July 16. Twenty-four counties in Virginia, from Chesterfield to Salem, have signed on to the personal finance program. 

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“Students and parents alike have found the summer course to be extremely valuable as the participants begin to transition into life away from home,” professor of real estate and finance and director of Longwood’s Center for Financial Responsibility Dr. Bennie Waller said. “This is not a typical dual-enrollment course. Our faculty members who teach this course have Ph.D.s in economics and finance and are at the top of their fields. Students who complete the course leave with a broad and substantial understanding of the principles of personal finance and economics, which sets them up to make responsible decisions in their lives.”

Details on applying for the local scholarships are available at cfr.longwood.edu.

Every Virginia high-school student is required to complete an economics and personal finance course to graduate. Students who enroll and complete the Longwood summer course fulfill that requirement and earn three hours of college credit that transfers to any accredited four-year college or university in the country. Students who later enroll at Longwood as full-time students will earn an additional three-credit-hour scholarship to be used in their first semester.

“Many students we work with say that completing the summer personal finance course opens up their fall semester schedules for electives they want to take,” assistant director of the Center for Financial Responsibility Danielle Hennessey ’14, said. “It gives them a lot of flexibility to devote time and energy to subjects they are passionate about — all while knowing they already have earned college credit in their back pocket.”

Registration for this summer’s course begins April 1. Tuition is $400. All students will take a final examination at Longwood on July 16. To register, visit cfr.longwood.edu/EPF.