Chicago State’s Millionaire Class and the Lesson Many People Will Miss

This was in today’s WSJ and I had to share with the group.

Chicago State University is running an experiment you don’t see often on a college campus anymore:

They’re teaching students how to get rich, not “middle-manager comfortable,” but eight-figure wealthy.

A group of mostly Black, working-class students are taking a “Mastering Wealth” class taught by Pete Kadens, an entrepreneur worth roughly $250 million. Instead of résumé tips, they’re setting explicit net-worth targets of $3M, $10M, $25M, even $50M, then building business plans to get there.

These students are balancing jobs, bills, kids, and real-world stress. Yet they’re pitching startups, studying pain points, and learning from billionaires who drop in to speak. The goal isn’t incremental progress. It’s generational wealth.

And it’s working. You can feel the shift in their expectations.

Programs like this should exist everywhere.

Not motivational fluff.

Not “here’s how you dress for an interview.”

But real wealth education for people who’ve never been told they’re allowed to aim big.

Kadens is right:

When someone in a poor neighborhood becomes wildly successful, the blast radius is huge. Jobs, confidence, role models, capital all of it spreads.

We need more of this in the world.

But Here’s the Trap I See Coming

Ambition isn’t the enemy.

Lack of focus is.

Reading these stories, you see students chasing three, four, five business ideas at once; aromatherapy, counseling, real estate, publishing, cleaning businesses, tax prep, cannabis ventures, patents, franchising.

It’s contagious optimism, but it’s also dangerous.

Anyone who listens to Founders Podcast knows the pattern:

Every great builder picked one thing, got world-class at it, and earned the right to expand later.

Jobs didn’t build Apple and a side hustle.

Nike didn’t start with shoes plus a cleaning company plus a tax-prep business.

Bezos didn’t build Amazon and an aromatherapy brand on the weekends.

The students in this class need the same message:

Tattoo the word FOCUS on your brain.

Keep your day job.

Build one great side hustle.

Make it work.

Then scale.