NYCs Founders School guarantees students will graduate with $1M businesses

It’s a an audacious proposition.At Founders School, a new entrepreneurism-focused high school that opened its doors at the beginning of September in the Financial District, tuition costs a cool $150,000 per year.But, if students haven’t launched a business that’s made at least one million dollars in profit by the end of their fourth year, the school says it will refund a pupil’s entire $600,000 tuition.“It’s bold but I don’t think it’s crazy,” said Nat Eliason, the school’s 33-year-old co-head and an entrepreneur himself.

In 2025, he sold his content marketing agency, Growth Machine, to MBE Group for an undisclosed amount.Founders School is an offshoot of the NYC location of Alpha School, a network of AI-based schools and learning centers that launched in Austin in 2014 and has since expanded across the country.Fifteen-year-old Sanjay Divakar, who hails from Greenwich, CT, asked his parents if he could transfer over from his hometown public school after seeing Kolin Jones — CEO of one of the world’s largest private aviation companies, Amalfi Jets — speak about the school on Instagram.“I’ve given two Tedx Talks on the fact that schools are not training students to their full potential,” Divakar said.“My [public school] teachers used to tell me running a business wouldn’t get me anywhere.”Eliason said the idea for Founders School came about after Alpha School head Joe Liemandt asked pupils how they could make high school “ten-times better.”“We already had students who were successfully starting businesses, but they felt they needed more support and resources to do that as effectively as possible,” Eliason explained.According to Founders School, there are currently 21 students enrolled.

Fifteen work out of the school’s Manhattan location, while the six others are based in Austin and will regularly travel to NYC to confer with their East Coast peers and mentors.Some students started class with a project well underway.Di...