Fort Worth Inc.
From left, TCU President Daniel Pullin, Interim Dean of the Neeley School of Business Hettie Richardson, Athletic Director Jeremiah Donati, and TCU tennis player Luke Swan all addressed the small assembly on Tuesday.
TCU added another significant benchmark to its pioneering Neeley NIL curriculum with the announcement this week that the school is partnering with Robinhood Markets Inc., a California-based financial services company.
Robinhood will provide financial education coursework for the university’s student-athletes through its signature Robinhood Money Drills program. The four-year partnership was formally presented on Tuesday in an event with university staff, alumni, and students at the Legends Club & Suites at Amon G. Carter Stadium.
“This is the day that so many of us have looked forward to for some period of time as we usher in another instance of innovation at Texas Christian University,” said TCU President Daniel Pullin. “And yet another instance of how this is able to quite literally move at the speed of business, to be able to operate at the intersection between academics and industry.
“We could not imagine a better partnership or a better marketplace than what TCU is enjoying today with Robinhood Markets.”
Robinhood will provide funding to support course sections of personal finance classes at the University, within the TCU Neeley School of Business and its dedicated Neeley NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) curriculum housed within Neeley’s Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Funding will also support mentors, speakers, and educational hours to prepare student-athletes and other interested students for success in the evolving NIL market. As part of the program, Robinhood will also offer guest lecturers. The for-credit course will operate every semester and be available to all current students at TCU.
In 2021, the NCAA decided to allow athletes to profit from their name, images, and likeness. The organization that oversees college athletic competition was spurred along by a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that redefined the concept of amateurism in an industry — college athletics — that collectively generates “billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a majority concurring opinion.
The Neeley school and the TCU athletic department embraced the change and saw opportunity. The two collaborated on developing a course in its entrepreneurial studies that provides applicable, real-world learning for students who are now no longer merely student-athletes but now entrepreneurs.
“It’s a big deal for us, not only on campus, but for recruiting,” TCU Athletic Director Jeremiah Donati said at the time. “Student-athletes have filled the class. Interest is really high. Basically, what we did when this legislation was passed was instantly create 525 entrepreneurs in our athletic department.
“While in the short term getting an NIL deal is a big deal for some of our student-athletes, I think the bigger deal is long term — you’re setting them up with an entrepreneurial skill set they’ll have for life, long after leaving TCU. That’s the bigger play here.”
The deal with Robinhood very much fits into that bigger play.
The relationship between the two was cultivated by TCU trustee Ron Parker, a former Horned Frogs football player and Class of 1976. He is retired from a multi-year career with PepsiCo.
“We have an amazing network of alumni and friends and several members of our board of trustees are always out advocating for TCU and our momentum and ways to collaborate with entities beyond just the four corners of our campus,” Pullin said.
“As a former student-athlete, as a very successful business leader who is very connected nationally, Ron Parker was able to see the innovation going on across TCU and the innovation that he witnessed at Robin Hood Markets and thought the two could have just a conversation around could what Robinhood is learning about financial success and financial literacy work very nicely to the evolving curriculum across TCU as we prepare all of our students to be financially literate and really ready to maximize their ability to not only create but to manage their financial condition and that of their families.”
Robinhood was founded by Baiju Bhatt and Vladimir Tenev, two Stanford graduates who successfully built high-frequency trading platforms for financial institutions in New York.
While there, according to literature on the company’s website, they discovered that big Wall Street firms were paying next-to-nothing to trade stocks, while most Americans were charged commission for every single trade. They wanted to change that, so they headed back to California to build a financial product that would give everyone — not just the wealthy — access to financial markets.
The company’s mantra is “a mission to democratize finance for all.”
Similar Robinhood Money Drills partnerships are currently in place at other universities, including West Virginia University, Kansas State University, and the University of Memphis.
“Financial education is at the heart of our mission, and we recognize that increasing access to financial education tools and resources early on can make a considerable difference,” said Mary Elizabeth Taylor, Robinhood vice president of International Government and External Affairs, who along with a handful of other Robinhood colleagues were at TCU on Tuesday. “We’re excited to expand access to financial education programming.”