The Alpaugh Family Economics Center

The Alpaugh Family Economics Center at UC provides inclusive financial and economic education to K-12 students through a series of in-school programs, including the Susan Sargen Student Enterprise Program (StEP), which gives thousands of Tristate children the opportunity to earn “StEP bucks” for attendance, good behavior, and meeting other classroom expectations. Students choose whether to save their StEP bucks (we pay them interest), donate them to charity, or spend them in StEP stores we stage in schools, with the help of volunteers. Children learn important financial concepts like saving, budgeting, and opportunity cost, and also learn the critical, lifelong skill of careful decision-making. 

 One highlight of StEP is Market Madness, which happens in May at Fifth Third Arena on UC's campus. In this entrepreneurship exercise, students form classroom businesses, even interviewing for leadership positions. They then collaborate on production and marketing plans, making products that they will bring to Fifth Third Arena to sell to peers. Students get a chance to sell and buy other teams' products and a tour of UC's campus. For many, it's their first time visiting a college campus. Both StEP and Market Madness rely on loyal volunteers. 

The Center also offers an award-winning, free online curriculum suite, $martPath (smartpathlearning.com). $martPath delivers accessible, engaging, standards-aligned lessons, including adapted materials for children with developmental disabilities, and a Spanish language curriculum. $martPath also includes an Emmy-winning series of puppet music videos that introduce young children to important early economic concepts like goods and services, scarcity, opportunity cost, and credit.

2023 SMG Portfolio Challenge Winners from Walnut Hills High School 

The Center also leads The Stock Market Game in Ohio, giving thousands of students statewide the opportunity to take part in a fun, virtual investing competition. The Stock Market Game is proven to boost math scores. 

The Center also offers free professional development for educators through both in-person and virtual workshops on a wide range of subjects and topics. 

In addition to its education team, the Center has a world-class applied research team. Those researchers supply unbiased analyses to a wide range of corporate, governmental, and non-profit clients. 

You can learn more about our research capabilities by clicking HERE