Washington Business Week, a business-education program for high school students, is coming to Cheney this year, following a seven-year hiatus from the Inland Northwest.

The nonprofit program will hold its event at Eastern Washington University for the first time, from July 27 to Aug. 1.

“We’re a statewide organization,” says Nick Quinlan, executive director of Washington Business Week. “We want to be serving the entire state.”

Washington Business Week was founded in 1976 to teach high school students more about business.

“At its core, Washington Business Week has a week-long program where we take anywhere from 50 to 250 students, and we put them in charge of a simulated business,” Quinlan says. “They spend a week running that simulated company under the mentorship of a real business leader.”

Business leaders throughout the state volunteer their time to teach about their own career experience to high school students, Quinlan explains. Programs are held at various locations across Washington each year.

“Students come out of it with a better understanding of business,” he says. “They know how to read a (profit-and-loss statement). They know how to think about strategic operating decisions, but more importantly, they learn the core skills that you need for any job. They learn the leadership, the communication, the teamwork skills.”

Quinlan says he’s aiming to have 50 students at the EWU program this year. While the program could scale up to 100 students, he says it will start smaller because it’s the first year back in the area since 2017.

“We served the Spokane area for about 35 years with a program at Gonzaga,” he says, noting that a plan to come back sooner was stymied by the pandemic.

The goal is to continue holding the program at EWU going forward, Quinlan adds. 

The cost to attend the EWU program is $1,100, although scholarship opportunities are available.

“Last year, 52% of our students were on a full-ride scholarship,” Quinlan says. “We work really hard to make our programs affordable.”

Attendees who complete the week-long program earn two college elective credits.

“I think that really speaks to the level of rigor that the program has,” Quinlan says.

The majority of Washington Business Week’s funding stems from donations from businesses and foundations. The student tuition payments also help fund the programs.

In addition to volunteers, Washington Business Week has three full-time employees and brings on more staff for the duration of each program.

Students stay in the dorms on campus for the programs.

“They get to live the university-life experience,” he says. “For a lot of our students, it’s maybe their first time coming onto a college campus.”

Washington Business Week is the primary program of the nonprofit Foundation for Private Enterprise Education.