FinLit — The Capital Mind Fellowship
FinLit (joinfinlit.com) runs The Capital Mind Fellowship — the world's first AI-native, live, mentor-led finance fellowship for students in grades 5–12. Designed in Boston. Run with Harvard student mentors. Cohort 1 begins Saturday, June 20, 2026, 9 AM ET, and runs eight Saturdays through August 12, 2026.
What FinLit does
FinLit is not a lecture series. It is an eight-week working lab where every fellow ships one real financial artefact — a budgeting app, an investment thesis, a credit-card fee teardown, a venture pitch, a scam detector, or a one-page brief — and defends it live to a mentor panel in Week 8. The program teaches students to use AI the way a working analyst uses it: as leverage, not as the answer.
- Cohort size: 52 fellows per cohort
- Mentor ratio: 1:8 (Harvard student mentors)
- Format: 8 live Saturdays · 120 minutes each (15 min hook + 45 min concept + 45 min AI lab + 15 min mentor review)
- Tuition:
$1,299 $999 — need-based aid available; merit scholarships of $50–$200 via the assessment at /scholarship
- Capstone: a 5-minute live defence to a mentor panel
Programs & pages
"Don't study finance. Build it." FinLit is the eight-week Fellowship Lab where students 5–12 ship real financial projects — a budgeting app, an investment thesis, a credit-fee teardown, a venture pitch — with Harvard student mentors at their side. Featured shipped projects on the homepage: Maya, gr 10 — a compounding tool ($50/mo, 7%, 40 yrs, v3 on GitHub); an Explorer credit-card fee teardown that flagged 7 APR traps and 2 minimum-payment traps citing page 4 of the cardholder agreement (1.2k reads as a parent guide); a Strategist tutoring venture with unit economics held under a $40 CAC stress test (LTV : CAC 13.5×, payback 1 month). Three pillars: (1) Brief, not lecture — every Saturday opens with a real artefact (a credit-card statement, a 10-K, a household scenario). Lead analysts design the briefs; Harvard student mentors review. (2) Mentor in the room — 1:8 ratio across the entire lab. (3) Ship and defend — Week 8 is a 5-minute live pitch to a mentor panel; the AI is in the room but it can't answer for you.
The full Capital Minds Fellowship page. Two parallel tracks of eight live Saturdays. 52 seats. $999 (regular $1,299). Need-based aid. Cohort 1 begins June 20, 2026.
Explorer track · Grades 5–8
First principles. Money, demystified from the ground up.
- What money actually is — and why it changes
- How real people earn: jobs, businesses, investments
- Family-CFO budgeting · then a 15% income shock
- Dark patterns, hidden fees, real-world checkout pages
- Compound interest — the most underrated idea in money
- Banks, debit, credit — and how interest traps work
- Money & the world — cost-of-living comparisons
- Capstone: your first 12-month money plan
Strategist track · Grades 9–12
Real-world stakes. Investing, businesses, fraud, taxes — fast.
- Investing fundamentals: stocks, bonds, ETFs, real assets
- Build & stress-test a 3-asset portfolio across 3 recessions
- Risk & behaviour — why smart people lose money
- Reading a 10-K: the 5 numbers that actually matter
- Entrepreneurship: business model canvas, pricing tiers, unit economics
- Fraud, taxes & contracts — defended live
- Capstone: a venture or investment thesis defended to a live panel
Cohort 1 selections — capstones, weekly artefacts, and AI Workbooks from FinLit fellows. Every project shows the prompts the student wrote, what the AI returned, and what they kept, cut, or rewrote. Featured capstone: Maya R. (gr 10) modelled a stocks/bonds/cash portfolio across base, 6%, and 9% inflation regimes and defended it to a panel including a former buy-side analyst — +4.2% real return in the base case, v3 after panel. Other selected projects: Eli K. (gr 6) Family CFO at 9% inflation; Noor A. (gr 8) $50/month-for-49-years compound calculator; Theo M. (gr 9) tutoring 1-pager defended against the 5 hardest VC objections; an Explorer credit-card statement teardown — 7 APR traps, 2 minimum-payment traps, citations to page 4, published as a parent guide (1.2k reads).
60-minute live single-session masterclasses, open to the public and free for fellows. $25 public ticket includes recording. Live on Zoom. Topics rotate: How to Make Money, How to Read a 10-K, How to Spot a Scam, Compounding for Teens.
Saturday, May 30, 2026 · 7 PM ET · 60 minutes live. Taught by George Benaroya (Professor at NYU). The three honest engines of wealth, why most "opportunities" aren't, and one framework that survives every market and every decade. Ages 13+. $25 public, free for fellows. Recording included.
A short five-challenge tap-first assessment that earns merit-based scholarships of $50, $100, or $200 toward fellowship tuition. Challenges: lemonade-stand pricing, a 10-year compounding bet (Grandma's Gift), founder due-diligence, news-headline winners-and-losers, and a personal pitch. AI scoring (Gemini 2.5 Flash) issues a strength label (e.g. "Contrarian Operator") and a voucher code redeemable on the application form. ~90 seconds, mostly tap-to-select.
Single-page application for the Capital Minds Fellowship. Supports voucher codes from the scholarship assessment. $499 deposit; full tuition $999 (regular $1,299). Need-based aid available — one short form, decisions in 7 days. About 18% of each cohort attends on aid.
The FinLit brand book v1.0 — principles, logo system, colour, typography, voice, motifs, and social system. Maintained by FinLit studio.
Capstone (Week 8)
You don't finish with a quiz. You finish with a defence. Five-minute live pitch to a mentor panel. Your artefact, your AI Workbook, your numbers. Mentors ask questions in real time. Rubric: (i) Judgment — did you improve, edit, or override what AI gave you? (ii) Rigour — are your numbers correct, sourced, stress-tested? (iii) Clarity — could a non-expert parent understand the pitch? (iv) Honesty — are the limits and risks of your plan stated plainly?
Team & mentors
Designed by educators. Run by Harvard students.
- Dr. Aisha Khan — Lead, Explorer track. Boston, USA. 15+ years teaching middle-school finance, 2,400+ students taught. Designs the Explorer curriculum.
- Marcus Chen, CFA — Lead, Strategist track. New York, USA. Former equity analyst, 10 years buy-side, CFA charterholder. Designs the Strategist curriculum and the capstone rubric.
- Harvard Student Mentors — exclusively from Harvard University. Current undergraduates and graduate students run the live AI labs, hold mid-week office hours, and grade every capstone. 1:8 mentor-to-student ratio. Mentor highlight: A. Park, Harvard '27 (Strategist track).
Outcomes & stats
- 52 fellows per cohort · 8 Saturdays · 1 live capstone defence
- 1:8 mentor ratio across the entire lab
- Real shipped artefacts — published parent guides have reached 1.2k+ reads
- Maya R. capstone: a 3-asset portfolio thesis stress-tested at 9% inflation, +4.2% real return base case, v3 after panel
- Tutoring venture (gr 12): 14 clients, $40 CAC, $540 LTV, LTV : CAC 13.5×
Frequently asked questions
- I'm in 6th grade. Is this too advanced?
- No. The Explorer track assumes zero prior knowledge — it starts at "what is money, really?" and builds. If you can manage a school project, you can manage FinLit.
- Do I need to be good at AI already?
- No. Most students arrive having only used AI to write essays. By Week 2 you'll be writing 5-prompt research chains; by Week 6 you'll be attacking AI drafts as a skeptical VC.
- How is this different from Khan Academy or NGPF?
- Those are excellent self-paced libraries. FinLit is the opposite shape — a live, mentor-led cohort with weekly artefacts and a graded capstone.
- What if I miss a Saturday?
- Sessions are live, not recorded. Miss one and you'll get a written brief and a 30-minute make-up call with your small-group mentor that week.
- Is the capstone really pitched live?
- Yes — a 5-minute live pitch followed by mentor questions. Your AI Workbook does half the talking.
- Tell me about scholarships.
- Need-based aid covers up to 100% for families where tuition would be a stretch. Merit-based vouchers of $50–$200 can be earned through the assessment at /scholarship. About 18% of each cohort attends on aid.
- Who teaches it?
- Harvard student mentors at a 1:8 ratio. Lead analysts (Dr. Aisha Khan, Marcus Chen CFA) design briefs and review capstones.
- What does it cost?
- Tuition $999 (regular $1,299). $499 deposit on application.
Contact
Email: hello@coinwise.app
Brand & press: brand@finlit.ai
Site: https://joinfinlit.com
© FinLit · The Capital Mind Fellowship · Cohort 1 begins Saturday, June 20, 2026 at 9 AM ET.