About The Finance Lab
443 students. One counselor.
California’s counselor-to-student ratio is 1 to 443 (ASCA, 2023-24). One counselor cannot build 443 personalized college plans, so many students make the biggest financial decision of their lives with almost no preparation.
What we do about it
The College Project puts the worksheet work in each student’s hands: real prices, real aid, real outcomes, and a plan they wrote themselves. Counselors keep the relationship. The book does the personalization.
How students decide before enrollment predicts their outcomes after it (Public Agenda, 2009).
“Nobody in my family has gotten this far in education. These chapters made me realize that everyone has a chance to go to college regardless of their background.”
Who we serve
Our resources are built for every student, in every kind of classroom. Our scholarship and student programming focus on young people from low-income, underserved communities, particularly those from first-generation families: students navigating a financial system that was never designed with them in mind.
The gap between knowing and not knowing is the difference between upward mobility and staying stuck. We exist to close that gap.
Mission
The Finance Lab prepares high school students for the first big money decisions of their lives, from paying for college to investing their first dollars. We provide free classroom resources and fund scholarships for students from low-income and first-generation families.
Vision
Break the cycle of poverty, one family at a time.
The Finance Lab runs it. Tyler Hensley makes it.How we work with Tyler Hensley
Tyler Hensley creates The Launchpad, The College Project, and the Arcade, and licenses them to The Finance Lab for free. The Finance Lab runs The Launchpad at no cost to its partner schools and holds all student data. That’s why The Launchpad lives at launchpad.thefinancelab.co: your data agreement is with a nonprofit that never sells student data. Student data stays with The Finance Lab. Tyler works with it only as a Finance Lab volunteer, and Commencement Finance never receives it.
Schools and districts that are not Finance Lab partners can license The Launchpad from Tyler through Commencement Finance, which also offers paid rollout support. Commencement Finance is separate from The Finance Lab.
Research cohort
students surveyed in our 2018 research cohort
believed they could afford a 4-year public university after the course, up from 46.7%
drop in high stress about college costs
From The College Project’s 2018 pre-course and post-course surveys. These are belief and stress measures, not knowledge measures. See the results
The people
Tyler Hensley
Founder & Executive Director
A California classroom teacher who began his career in wealth management, Tyler created The Launchpad and The College Project, drawing on 17 years of teaching high school. Learn more and connect with Tyler at commencementfinance.com.
Krista Meyers
Director of Programs
A veteran classroom teacher with a counseling credential, Krista currently teaches Dual Enrollment College Seminar. She leads The Finance Lab’s programs, from classroom rollouts to the scholarship.
Support the work
Fund a scholarship students invest themselves.
The Finance Lab is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 82-5305120. Donations fund scholarships, classroom programs, and the work of keeping the curriculum free for partner schools.
Questions: team@thefinancelab.co