New York SBDC Research Network

My knee-jerk answer to that question is no. I have several reasons why, and I’ll be sharing them in this article. But first, do you know of anyone who has purchased a  franchise business right out of college? To learn more visit  SBA !

Daniel Fine is the founder and chief executive of Glass-U, a two-year-old, 10-employee maker of foldable sunglasses bearing the licensed brands of universities, music festivals like Lollapalooza, and the World Cup soccer tournament last summer. He arranges for the manufacture of the glasses in China and their distribution around the country. He’s also a senior in college. Mr. Fine financed Glass-U, which operates out of off-campus housing, in part with proceeds from a tutoring company, NexTutors, that he started right after high school. He has also founded Fine Prints, a custom apparel company he started during high school, and Dosed, a health care technology company that is working on a smartphone app to help diabetics. In a recent conversation that has been condensed and edited, Mr. Fine, who is 21 and attends the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, talked about how he got started in entrepreneurship and why he decided not to complete his application for a Thiel Fellowsh

The College of Nanoscale Science & Engineering at the University at Albany, UAlbany's School of Business, the Lally School of Management & Technology at Rensselaer, and Syracuse University will host the third annual New York State Business Plan Competition on April 26, 2012. The New York State Business Plan Competition is a venture creation and innovation competition that was established in 2009 to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship throughout New York State's colleges and universities. The competition encourages students to fully engage in their research and allows them to gain valuable experience through presenting their business plan to potential investors and industry executives. The top applications will be selected by an external panel of judges to present in the final round of the competition and compete for over $100,000 in cash prizes. Since 2010, over 35 student teams from 13 New York State colleges have presented at the competition. At the end of

"College marketing is at an interesting crossroads today. Students and colleges have become more concerned with saving money, while at the same time, more technologies for marketing and communication have developed. Often, this means that college marketing departments are able to work smarter and leaner, saving money while at the same time more effectively targeting and attracting the right students to the right campus. Other times, it means that they’re able to better pinpoint what works and what doesn’t, focusing their efforts on what really brings students to campus and keeps them there." More HERE . Is any of this applicable to YOUR business?

One of my State Data Center colleagues, Dale Miller, pointed this out to me. He thinks this is important to share, and I quite concur. Moreover, this being the graduation season, it’s timely! He has discovered that many parents are quite surprised about how much they are expected to contribute to their kids’ college costs. Dale writes, "This is referred to as their Expected Family Contribution (EFC). What typically happens is that parents bumble along (I know we did) until their child is a junior in HS and then they go through the process of applying to colleges and for financial aid at the FAFSA.gov website when WHAM >>>> - they get a reality check upside the head when it comes to how much the federal government thinks THEY can contribute toward attending school." I can imasgine there are MANY parents sitting in financial aid office with tears in their eyes over this. What can the schools or government could do to reduce this sticker shock when it comes to EFCs?