Golisano is about to start business school.

With the high cost of post-secondary education and the mountains of debt many students must saddle themselves with to attend college, Thomas Golisano has a solution. He is starting his own school.

Golisano, of Paychex Inc. The founder, a noted philanthropist and Rochester native, said he plans to cover the bulk of the school’s operating costs through his philanthropic arm, the B. Thomas Golisano Foundation.

The Golisano Institute of Business and Entrepreneurship developed Christ, and the school plans to pay students $8,900 a year. Students pay fees in two installments. Providing a four-part plan “involves a lot more accounting,” says Golisano. Scholarships are awarded.

He plans to locate the school in a 126,000-square-foot former Paychex building, slated to begin classes in September 2023.

“I was very concerned about the negotiations with my former employer … mainly because there might be some shareholders who think I got a really good deal,” Golisano joked.

The business school offers a two-year certificate program, Golisano, who himself has an associate’s degree in business management, described it as “a very intensive business-related curriculum in an experiential learning environment.”

Aiming to hire high school seniors, young professionals, high school veterans and children of family business owners, Golisano promises “the most intensive curriculum of all business courses.” Only “cutting edge liberal arts” courses, such as psychology or sales management, are offered to help students develop their business skills, he said.

“The idea is to provide a much broader range of learning in a shorter amount of time than other methods,” explains Golisano. It expects to graduate 250 students a year for a total of 500 students.

The institution plans to do away with the two-month vacation academic calendar, offering a four-quarter schedule throughout the year, each offering 11 weeks of instruction with a two-week vacation. Classes are scheduled to run from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The half-day class schedule is designed to allow students time to pursue internships or part-time jobs.

The feature that Golisano is calling Hall Day is planned for every Wednesday in the school cafeteria where CEOs and company executives meet and interact with students.

No dormitories have been set up, but the school expects to provide some form of homework help for students facing excessively long commutes.

The “four quad” model allows students to pack more courses into two years than some four-year bachelor’s or science programs can offer, Golisano said.

The revised schedule means “we are asking you to work harder and longer,” Golisano allows. But I think some, most of them, prefer to think they’re happy with a straight business curriculum (with a little liberal arts) rather than taking four years to accomplish what they can accomplish in two years.

While individual Golisano Institute courses are accredited and allow students to transfer credits into a four-year BA or BS program, the school itself is not accredited, a decision stemming in part from Golisano’s belief that the traditional liberal arts curriculum is overrepresented.

“New York mandates a lot of liberal arts courses at accredited colleges and universities (which is a negative in my opinion),” says Golisano. “People are sometimes paying a lot of money for courses they don’t think are relevant to their future.”

Liberal arts and technical schools including the University of Rochester, Roberts Wesleyan University, Nazareth College and Monroe Community College are on board and supportive, Golisano says. Officials from the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher University serve on the Golisano Institute’s advisory board.

“It’s not the race,” Golisano said. “They were all very, very helpful.”

Golisano’s former Paychex facility needs only minor renovations to turn it into a classroom service. Work is expected to be completed in February or March, leaving plenty of time for the school’s planned fall 2023 opening date. Faculty and officials such as the president and provost have not yet been appointed.

Aster He is senior secretary of the Rochester Beacon. Beacon welcomes comments from our readers Feedback policy including using their full and real name.

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