15 Economics Summer Programs in Massachusetts for High School Students
If you’re a high school student interested in economics, business, public policy, or data-driven decision making, summer economics programs can be a strong way to explore those interests early. Economics helps you understand how choices are made under constraints, how markets function, and how policies affect people and institutions.
Why study economics in Massachusetts during the summer?
Massachusetts is a particularly strong place to study economics at the high school level. The state is home to major universities, research institutions, and policy centers, creating an environment where economics is taught and applied seriously. Summer programs here often reflect that academic depth.
What economics summer programs in Massachusetts offer?
Economics summer programs typically focus on applied learning rather than memorization. You may study topics such as microeconomics, macroeconomics, public policy, market behavior, or basic data analysis. Some programs connect economics to related fields like finance, public policy, or entrepreneurship, helping you see how economic thinking applies across industries. This kind of exposure helps you understand what studying economics in college might actually look like.
If you’re interested in finance summer programs in Massachusetts, check here, or go here for a list of startup ideas for high school students.
With that, here is our curated list of 15 economics summer programs in Massachusetts for high school students!
15 Economics Summer Programs in Massachusetts for High School Students
1. Harvard Pre-College Program
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cost: $6,100 + $75 application fee
Program Dates: Session I: June 21 – July 2 | Session II: July 5 – July 17 | Session III: July 19 – July 31
Application Deadline: February 11
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors who are at least 16 years old.
The Harvard Pre-College Program is an academically rigorous, on-campus summer program that allows you to experience college-level coursework while living at Harvard University. For those interested in economics, business, or related fields, the program offers relevant options within its Business and Leadership course category. During your session, you’ll attend daily classes focused on discussion, analysis, and applied thinking, giving you exposure to how economic and business concepts are explored in a college setting. Outside the classroom, you’ll participate in structured co-curricular activities that mirror college life, including academic workshops and social programming.
2. Young Founders Lab (YFL)
Location: Online
Cost: Varies by the program. Financial aid is available
Program Dates: Varies by cohort
Application Deadline: Rolling; varies by program track
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12; no prior startup or nonprofit experience required.
Young Founders Lab helps you build a startup or nonprofit while developing practical economics and business skills. Instead of focusing just on theory, the program centers on how real economic decisions are made, including evaluating markets, testing assumptions, and using data to guide strategy. Throughout the program, you’ll work through structured workshops and assignments that cover customer discovery, market sizing, pricing logic, business modeling, and fundraising fundamentals. Whether you work independently or in a team, you’ll analyze real problems, assess demand, and adjust your approach based on feedback and measurable outcomes. Mentors guide you through each stage, helping you understand how data, incentives, and trade-offs shape viable ventures in the real world.
3. Boston University Summer Term – Introductory Economics
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Cost: $3,380
Program Dates: Multiple dates depending on the track.
Application Deadline: Varies by summer term and enrollment track
Eligibility: High school students admitted through Boston University’s High School Honors or pre-college enrollment pathways.
The Introductory Microeconomic Analysis (EC 101) and Introductory Macroeconomic Analysis (EC 102) courses at Boston University let you study economics at the same level as first-year BU undergraduates during the summer. These classes follow the standard economics sequence and are a good fit if you are considering economics, business, management, or data-focused fields. In Microeconomic Analysis, you study how households and firms make decisions, how prices form in different market structures, and how policies affect outcomes like regulation, income distribution, and resource allocation. Macroeconomic Analysis shifts the focus to the economy as a whole, covering topics such as inflation, unemployment, fiscal and monetary policy, and international trade.
3. Ladder Internship Program
Location: Remote! You can work from anywhere in the world
Cost: Varies by the program. Financial aid is available
Application deadline: Deadlines vary depending on the cohort
Program dates: Multiple cohorts throughout the year
Eligibility: Students who can work for 10-20 hours/week, for 8-12 weeks. Open to high school students, undergraduates, and gap year students!
Ladder Internships is a selective start-up internship program for ambitious high school students! In the program, you work with a high-growth start-up on an internship. Start-ups that offer internships range across a variety of industries, from tech/deep tech, and AI/ML to health tech, marketing, journalism, consulting, and more. Ladder’s start-ups are high-growth companies on average, raising over a million dollars. Past founders have included YCombinator alums, founders raising over 30 million dollars, or founders who previously worked at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. In the program, interns work closely with their managers and a Ladder Coach on real-world projects and present their work to the company. Here is the application form.
4. Harvard Summer School’s Economics, Finance, and Public Policy
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cost: $15,735
Program Dates: June 20–August 8
Application Deadline: February 11
Eligibility: High school students admitted to Harvard Summer School’s Secondary School Program
The Economics, Finance, and Public Policy track within Harvard Summer School’s Secondary School Program (SSP) allows you to design a focused summer experience centered on economic reasoning, financial systems, and policy analysis. During the program, you can choose from a wide range of economics and finance courses, including Principles of Microeconomics, Principles of Macroeconomics, Financial and Managerial Economics, Public Finance, and Econometrics. These courses emphasize how economic principles apply to real-world decision-making, from market behavior and financial accounting to data analysis and public policy.
5. Harvard Summer School’s Residential Secondary School Program
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cost: $9,100
Program Dates: July 12 – August 7
Application Deadline: February 11
Eligibility: High school students who are at least 16 years old
The 4-Week Residential Secondary School Program at Harvard Summer School is a for-credit, on-campus summer program that allows you to take one accelerated college-level course while living on Harvard’s campus. Within this format, you can choose from a limited set of courses, including offerings in economics, entrepreneurship, and personal finance, making it a strong option if you want focused exposure to economic thinking in a short, intensive timeframe. Economics-related options emphasize how markets function, how financial decisions are made, and how economic principles apply to real-world business and policy contexts, rather than survey-level overviews. As a residential student, you experience college life alongside academics, with access to Harvard’s libraries, academic resources, and campus facilities.
6. Today’s Interns, Tomorrow’s Professionals (TIP)
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Cost: Free. A stipend is paid
Program Dates: Summer program, with the possibility of year-round continuation
Application Deadline: Varies; students typically apply through the Boston Private Industry Council (PIC)
Eligibility: High school students who have completed their sophomore year in the Boston Public Schools and meet income-eligibility requirements.
The Today’s Interns, Tomorrow’s Professionals (TIP) program is a paid summer work-learn internship run by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in partnership with the Boston Private Industry Council. The program places you inside a professional workplace while you learn how large economic institutions function day to day. You are assigned to a department within the Federal Reserve Bank, where you support real work connected to economics, finance, community development, research, or public policy. Through this placement, you see how economic data, financial systems, and workforce issues connect to real decisions that affect communities and markets. The program also focuses on long-term development. Students who perform well may be invited to continue in a year-round internship that can last up to three years.
7. Tufts University – Principles of Economics
Location: Medford/Somerville, Massachusetts
Cost: Not specified
Program Dates: July 6 – August 14
Application Deadline: Not specified
Eligibility: Open to high school students
Tufts University’s Principles of Economics (EC 0005) is a college-level summer course that introduces you to the core ideas of both microeconomics and macroeconomics. You’ll study how markets determine prices and outputs, how consumers and businesses respond to market forces, and how broader factors like economic growth, unemployment, inflation, and government policy shape national economies. You’ll learn to apply economic terminology correctly, distinguish between real and nominal variables, and evaluate fiscal and monetary policies based on their economic impact.
8. Babson Summer Study: Introduction to Entrepreneurial Experience
Location: Wellesley, Massachusetts
Cost: Online: $6,295 | In-Person (Day): $9,295 total
Application Deadline: March 13
Program Dates: July 8 – July 28
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors who are 16 or older by the start of the program
Babson Summer Study is a three-week, college-credit summer program that introduces you to applied economic and business decision-making through an entrepreneurial lens. The course explores how economic, social, and environmental challenges are addressed through value creation, resource allocation, and market-driven solutions. Throughout the program, you examine real-world economic problems framed by the United Nations Global Goals, focusing on how incentives, trade-offs, and financial constraints influence outcomes. You gain exposure to core concepts that support economic thinking, including finance fundamentals, market viability, leadership, and strategic decision-making. Rather than studying economics abstractly, you apply economic reasoning to practical scenarios involving business models, impact assessment, and long-term sustainability.
9. Boston College Experience (BCE) Two-Week Non-Credit Program
Location: Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Cost: Residential: $5,800 | Commuter: $3,200
Program Dates: June 29 – July 10
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions
Eligibility: Rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors aged 15–18
The Boston College Experience (BCE) Two-Week Non-Credit Program lets you study economics in a college-style setting at Boston College. You spend two weeks engaging with economic ideas through structured classes that reflect how economics is taught at the undergraduate level. The program emphasizes in-person learning and discussion, giving you practice with economic reasoning without the length of a full summer term. You receive a certificate of completion at the end, marking your participation in an academically focused summer experience.
10. Boston Leadership Institute’s Finance Summer Program
Location: Boston, MA (The Newman School; Gann/Bentley, Waltham)
Cost: Not specified
Program Dates: Session 1: June 22 – July 10 | Session 2: July 6 – July 24
Application Deadline: Rolling
Eligibility: High school students interested in economics, finance, and quantitative analysis
The Finance Summer Program at Boston Leadership Institute is a three-week course that introduces you to economics through financial markets. You study how economic forces influence asset prices and investment decisions, linking market behavior to core macroeconomic ideas. You learn how interest rates are set, how the Federal Reserve operates, and how primary and secondary markets function. The program covers stock, bond, and options valuation, along with basic forecasting and cash-flow analysis. You also examine how institutional investors, hedge funds, and private equity firms allocate capital and manage risk. The course ends with a capstone-style project where you build projections and valuations for a hypothetical business.
11. Wharton Global Youth Program’s Future of the Business World
Location: Online
Cost: $4,099
Program Dates: June 15 – June 26 | July 6 – July 17
Application Deadline: January 28
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12
The Future of the Business World program, offered by Wharton Global Youth Program, is an intensive summer experience designed for high school students interested in understanding how business decisions shape economies and societies. While the program is business-focused, it incorporates key applied economics concepts, including market dynamics, consumer behavior, and the economic forces that influence industries. During the two-week program, you’ll explore how businesses operate within broader economic systems through topics such as market research, scenario planning, and strategic decision-making under uncertainty. You’ll analyze how companies respond to economic shifts, test assumptions using data, and evaluate the economic impact of innovation and entrepreneurship.
12. Economics for Leaders (EFL)
Location: Residential, select U.S. campuses and virtual options available
Cost: $2,800 for residential programs | $900 for virtual programs
Program Dates: Varies by location. Typically from June to July
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions
Eligibility: High school sophomores and juniors only
Economics for Leaders is a selective summer program run by the Foundation for Teaching Economics that focuses on teaching you how to apply economic reasoning to leadership and public policy decisions. During the program, you’ll study core economics topics through structured simulations and case-based discussions. Instruction covers areas such as economic growth and scarcity, opportunity cost, labor markets, incentives, government, money and inflation, and international markets. EFL also integrates a formal leadership curriculum alongside economics instruction. Using the Leadership Pyramid Matrix commonly taught in university leadership courses, you’ll explore personal, relational, and contextual leadership domains.
13. Brown Pre-College Online- Business, Economics, and Legal Studies
Location: Online
Cost: Varies by course length
Program Dates: June 15 – July 24
Application Deadline: Rolling
Eligibility: High school students completing grades 9–12
Brown Pre-College Online is a virtual summer program offered by Brown University that allows you to explore college-level economics and related subjects without leaving home. Within the Business, Economics, and Legal Studies category, you can study economic concepts through structured coursework that reflects Brown’s undergraduate curriculum and student-centered learning approach. You’ll spend time reading, analyzing ideas, completing assignments, and participating in discussions that strengthen critical thinking, economic reasoning, and independent learning skills. All students who successfully finish their course receive a digital Certificate of Completion, and those enrolled in courses lasting three weeks or longer also receive a Course Performance Report summarizing their academic engagement.
14. Wharton Global Youth Program
Location: Online
Cost: Varies by program
Program Dates: Multiple sessions between June and July
Application Deadline: Varies by program; priority deadlines apply
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12
The Wharton Global Youth Program offers a suite of online summer programs that provide strong exposure to economics and finance through Wharton’s research-driven approach to business education. Among the most economics-focused options are Financial Decision Making and Understanding Your Money, both designed to help you build a clear foundation in economic reasoning, financial systems, and decision-making. In Financial Decision Making, you’ll explore core economic principles alongside fundamental finance concepts, learning how individuals and organizations evaluate trade-offs, assess risk, and make informed choices in complex financial environments. If you’re looking for a more flexible introduction, Understanding Your Money is a self-paced online program that focuses on essential economic concepts, investing basics, and personal finance.
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