Entrepreneurship Major Built Financial Literacy Program as Part of Usher’s Nonprofit

Jessica Washington is one of those people who succeeded without a bachelor’s degree. After earning an associate’s in accounting, she focused on raising three children and running a screen printing and embroidery business.

Now that Washington’s kids have finished college, she’s going for a B.B.A. in entrepreneurship from the Robinson College of Business, with plans to pursue a master’s—for herself and the thousands of students she educates through Usher’s New Look (UNL), a nonprofit youth leadership academy founded by singer, songwriter, and actor Usher Raymond IV. She started as UNL’s financial literacy director in 2017, building the program’s fiscal education curriculum from the ground up.

Through the B.B.A., Washington has taken electives like Personal Financial Planning, which reinforced her confidence in the relevance of the lessons she designed for UNL. Truth be told, her biggest takeaway from the program is professional connections. This past summer, she completed an internship at the Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs, where she assisted entrepreneurs in launching their products—like Brown Toy Box, a collection of kits intended to expose children from historically excluded populations to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) education.

“I didn’t spend my internship just sitting at the welcome desk. I filled a different need every day,” Washington said. “Seeing how the Russell Innovation Center operates and how entrepreneurs work on the back end was a phenomenal experience.”

Washington formed meaningful relationships with her classmates as well. Through courses that intentionally snowball concepts, she and her peers conceived a couple of prototypes over multiple semesters. One app connects talent with small businesses that might not have the capital to pay large headhunting fees. Another helps users find food trucks that change locations without notifying patrons of their whereabouts; the platform also brings food trucks to industrial parks and warehouses with a large number of employees who need dining options.

“Whether a class covered business law, business model validation, or scaling a new venture, we kept developing the same products,” Washington said. “We really think we’ve got something.”

Washington graduates in December and has exciting projects in the pipeline. She will present “Financial Literacy Beyond the Classroom” at the SXSW EDU Conference & Festival in March 2022. She also is establishing a youth business accelerator that will launch as part of UNL next fall.

“These kids are doing a number of things like selling cupcakes, braiding hair, selling ripped jeans, babysitting, or walking dogs. The idea is to turn casual side hustles into youth-run businesses,” Washington said. “I’ll continue to educate and be an entrepreneur for the rest of my life.”