Patent US 8,600,874

A technique involves providing an actual cost commitment and investing a retail value of the actual cost commitment to a student venture, and receiving a return on the retail value and a return on actual cost that is equal to the return on the retail value minus the actual cost commitment. A system constructed according to the technique may include an investment decision engine, a portfolio management engine, and a venture scholar fund operations engine. The system may further include, for example, an authentication engine and a public information engine.