Wharton shares business savvy with high-schoolers

On Monday, the Wharton School launched Knowledge@Wharton High School — a free online publication geared towards high-school students.

The site will include regularly updated articles and videos that will teach students about business, KWHS managing director Roberta Shell said, adding that the articles will be written by Wharton professors, students and freelance writers. There will also be a Teachers Portal where teachers can share lesson plans.

“We aim to teach high-school students financial literacy,” Shell said.

KWHS will be the newest addition to the Knowledge@Wharton network of online business journals, which are used in 189 countries.

The site will be launched in both English and Spanish to engage a more global audience, Shell said, adding that she hopes to launch the site in other languages in the future.

“It’s never too early to start educating students about business,” director of Wharton’s Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies Mauro Guillén said.

Guillén believes there is a dire need for business education among high-school and college students because “many people have a very weak understanding of how financial services work.”

“I didn’t learn too much about business in school,” said Millburn High School senior Ali Buchalter, who will be attending Wharton next year. “A website would have been great, and I definitely would have used it.”

Spreading its knowledge to high-school students can be “Wharton’s way of paying its dues to society,” Guillén said.

The site was originally slated to launch in 2007 but was delayed because of funding difficulties. Now, it has gained the necessary funding, which will come from private individuals and corporations, as well as the United States Department of Education, Guillén said.

Guillén hopes that there will be future publications geared towards middle-school students or retirees. These online publications “will contribute to building Penn’s reputation.”

“High-school students will recognize Wharton as being a source of knowledge and will be more likely to apply to Penn,” he said.

Buchalter agreed, saying “if it were effective it would have made me even more likely to apply.”

According to the press release, KWHS is “the first of its kind offered by a major university,” and Guillén agrees that Penn is, “doing something pioneering.”

“We are expecting other universities to replicate the site,” he said.

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