15 Real Estate Programs for High Schoolers
If you're a high school student curious about business, finance, or how properties get bought and sold, real estate programs are a good way to dig into those interests. These programs let you try out skills such as understanding property prices, spotting good investment opportunities, and learning the basics of negotiation. Many top colleges and organizations offer short-term courses, summer programs, and online workshops designed specifically for high schoolers, which allows you to explore the field early on.
If you’re open to considering other programs, find a list of free programs in our blog here, and for those interested in leadership-specific programs, check out our blog here.
Why should I do a real estate program in high school?
Joining a real estate program can give you a hands-on look at how the industry actually works. It’s also a practical way to explore business and finance before college. You get to learn how to evaluate properties, understand simple contracts, follow market trends, and think like an investor. Moreover, being part of a structured program can strengthen your college applications, especially if you're planning to apply to business or related majors. You can find programs run by university business schools or youth entrepreneurship platforms that focus on real estate. Plus, you’ll get a chance to connect with mentors and other students who are interested in similar careers.
To make your search easier, here are 15 real estate programs for high school students that are worth checking out.
Quick Look
15 programs total spanning commercial real estate, urban planning, property development, investment strategy, and professional licensing, hosted by institutions including Cornell, Columbia, NYU, Fordham, Brown, Drexel, and Howard University
Tennessee's Real Estate Licensing Program is the only option on this list that leads directly to a professional real estate license, offered completely free to Tennessee graduating seniors
New York Tech's Business Bootcamp is the only other fully free option, available virtually with rolling admissions throughout the year
Several programs focus specifically on New York City's real estate market, including NYU SPS, Fordham, Cornell AAP City Visionaries, and both Columbia programs
NAIOP-Drexel and Marquette's MKE CRE Program are the most explicitly diversity-focused, prioritizing first-generation, low-income, or underrepresented students with free or stipended participation
1. Real Estate Executive Council REEX Summer Program
Location: Howard University, Washington, D.C.
Cost: $1,800; need-based full scholarships are available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Competitive; approximately 15–30 students per university
Dates: July 5–17
Application Deadline: May 1
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors
The REEX Summer program is a 2-week residential experience for rising high school juniors and seniors interested in commercial real estate. You learn entrepreneurship and commercial real estate fundamentals through masterclass modules and by working in small-group cohorts. You gain access to faculty, university partners, and admissions officers. You’ll take part in experiential learning like site visits, case studies, and interactive instruction with students from across the country and experience college life. You’ll also engage with CEOs, founders, and executives in business and commercial real estate. The program, hosted at Howard University’s School of Business, includes a capstone project and team competitions leading to a national-level competition.
2. Ladder Internship Program
Location: Virtual
Cost: Varies depending on the program type; financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Around 19%; 70–100 students per cohort
Dates: Year-round in 8–12 week sessions during spring, summer, fall, and winter
Application Deadline: Deadlines vary by cohort; Spring (January), Summer (May), Fall (September), and Winter (November)
Eligibility: High school students, undergraduates, or gap year students who can work 10–20 hours a week for 8–12 weeks
Ladder Internships is a remote program that matches students with nonprofits and startups from around the world, including some backed by Y Combinator or led by professionals with experience at McKinsey, Google, and Microsoft. Founded by Harvard graduates, the program offers roles in areas like finance, consulting, AI, and other fields that can connect to real estate work. As an intern, you work on real projects and present your work at the end of the program. You also join group sessions with other interns, build communication and time management skills, and receive guidance from a Ladder coach and a site manager. You can review the application form early to see which internships are available.
3. Marquette University Vieth Institute for Real Estate Leadership / MKE CRE – Summer High School Immersion Program
Location: Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Cost/Stipend: No cost / Stipend paid, amount not disclosed
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; ~12 students
Dates: June 15–19
Application Deadline: Not specified; contact NAIOP Wisconsin directly at 414-622-0006 or info@naiop-wi.org
Eligibility: Rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors; from underrepresented backgrounds
In this program, you explore commercial real estate by studying how properties are designed, built, managed, owned, and sold. You learn directly from industry professionals through classroom-style instruction delivered by one of the nation's top-ranked undergraduate real estate programs. You tour active construction sites and completed developments, attend panel discussions led by bankers, developers, and attorneys, and receive one-on-one mentoring from working practitioners. You stay in supervised campus dormitories and join group outings such as a baseball game, building both professional knowledge and peer connections. The experience develops your understanding of real estate finance, development, and career pathways while exposing you to the people shaping Milwaukee's built environment.
4. Lumiere Research Scholar Program
Location: Remote
Cost: Varies based on the program type; financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; typically, 1:1 mentor-student ratio
Dates: Cohorts run in fall, summer, winter, and spring; options range from 12 weeks to 1 year
Application Deadline: Varies based on the cohort
Eligibility: High school students with an unweighted minimum 3.3 GPA on a 4.0 scale are encouraged to apply
The Lumiere Research Scholar Program pairs you with a PhD mentor to guide you through creating and completing an independent research project. You'll explore subjects across STEM, humanities, and social sciences, from data science and economics to urban studies that connect to real estate. If nothing quite fits, you can work with your mentor to design a custom project. You attend research workshops, get writing support, and work with a writing coach to turn your research into an academic paper. The program is not run by a university, but you may be able to earn UCSD credit for your work. Additional details and application information are available here.
5. Howard Property Development Summer Internship
Location: Hybrid; virtual and in-person at a designated property in Hampton Roads, VA
Stipend: Not specified
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Acceptance rate not specified; ~5 students
Dates: June 23 – July 11
Application Deadline: June 15
Eligibility: High school juniors and seniors, as well as college students studying business, real estate, economics, finance, or a related field; reside in the Hampton Roads Area
The Howard Property Development summer internship puts you in the middle of real estate investing and property development. You'll work alongside experienced professionals and learn market analysis, investment strategy, project management, and industry trends. During the internship, you’ll conduct market research by evaluating investment opportunities and analyzing current real estate trends. You'll also get experience evaluating properties and assessing their value and potential. You’ll contribute to development projects and learn about budgeting, scheduling, and teamwork. In addition, you’ll use financial tools for financial modeling, including investment analysis and cash flow projections. The program will also help you with career development and building connections with industry professionals, mentors, and peers.
6. NAIOP-Drexel Summer Real Estate Program
Location: Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
Cost: None
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Competitive; ~28 students
Dates: July 12–21
Application Deadline: February 20
Eligibility: Current high school sophomores and juniors who are first-generation, low-income, and/or have demonstrated an interest in commercial real estate
The NAIOP-Drexel Summer Real Estate Program is a 10-day experience for rising high school juniors and seniors that introduces them to careers in commercial real estate, including architecture, brokerage, engineering, construction, development, and finance. It is hosted by Drexel University and sponsored by NAIOP. The program includes lectures, group projects, site visits to Philadelphia real estate developments, and direct interaction with commercial real estate professionals. You’ll gain exposure to industry topics and build skills in financial literacy, presentation preparation, public speaking, and the broader real estate field. You’ll also receive mentorship from industry executives, insights into college life from Drexel faculty and students, and potential internships with local commercial real estate companies.
7. Summer Discovery’s Introduction to Real Estate at UCLA
Location: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA
Cost: $9,599 (Residential); $4,699 (Commuter) + $100 non-refundable application fee
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; small cohort sizes
Dates: June 28 – July 17
Application Deadline: December 16 (early) | January 27 (regular I) | March 24 (regular II) | April 28 (regular III)
Eligibility: Students in grades 9–12
Summer Discovery’s Introduction to Real Estate at UCLA is a three-week program where high school students explore the Los Angeles market and gain hands-on experience in residential and commercial real estate. You build a strong foundation in real estate finance, law, and market analysis while learning from industry professionals. You’ll participate in site visits and projects, which will help you understand different property types and real market conditions in one of the most diverse real estate markets. Although the focus is on the U.S., you also gain insights useful for global real estate. By the end of the program, you will understand core concepts, develop key skills, and prepare for a future career or real estate licensing.
8. NYU SPS High School Academy Career Edge — Real Estate NYC: From Design to Development
Location: NYU School of Professional Studies, New York, NY
Cost: $2,579 per course + $50 non-refundable application fee; $684 optional add-on covers housing and dining
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; small cohort sizes
Dates: June 29 – July 2; July 6–10; July 13–17; July 20–24; July 27–31; August 3–7
Application Deadline: April 29 (residential students); June 12 (commuter students); March 14 (international students)
Eligibility: Students who have successfully completed grades 9, 10, or 11
NYU SPS High School Academy Career Edge allows high school students to explore career paths and experience life on the NYU campus without earning college credit. You take part in projects and short assignments that help you build skills useful for college-level work. In the one-week Real Estate NYC From Design to Development course, you’ll learn from industry professionals through the Schack Institute of Real Estate. You’ll study the full real estate development process, including how projects are conceived, designed, valued, financed, constructed, and managed. You’ll also explore development history, team roles like architects and engineers, valuation, feasibility, underwriting, construction phases, sustainability, and property and asset management.
9. Cornell AAP City Visionaries: Summer Program for High School Students
Location: Gensler Family AAP NYC Center, Cornell Tech Campus, Roosevelt Island, New York City, NY
Cost: $13,000 + $45 non-refundable application fee; a limited number of need-based scholarships are available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; small cohort sizes
Dates: July 6 – August 7
Application Deadline: April 17
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors aged 16–18 with a GPA of 3.3 or higher
City Visionaries is a five-week, non-credit summer program for high school students that introduces you to city design through the lens of New York City. Hosted by Cornell AAP at the NYC Center on the Cornell Tech campus, the program is led by faculty and focuses on urban development and real estate concepts like land use and planning. You’ll study case studies of major projects in Manhattan to understand how land is assembled, how financial and social capital are used, and how communities are affected. Through immersive experiences, you’ll explore city planning and design and develop your own ideas. You’ll also receive a Cornell AAP Certificate of Completion and a portfolio of your work.
10. Columbia University's NYC Residential Summer Program — Urban Planning and Design
Location: Columbia University, New York, NY
Cost: $12,837 per session + $80 application fee + at least $50 for course materials + course-specific fees
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; cohort sizes vary based on course capacity
Dates: June 29 – July 17
Application Deadline: April 20
Eligibility: Rising 9th–12th-grade students, including current seniors; for the residential option, students must be 15 years of age or older and turn 16 by December 31 of the year they attend
Columbia University’s NYC Residential Summer Pre-College Program allows high school students to choose from over 70 college-level courses and to experience campus life through college-prep sessions, faculty talks, wellness activities, and community events. In the Urban Planning and Design course, you explore how cities are built and how land is used to create strong communities. You’ll learn about infrastructure, water, air, transportation, business districts, and environmental factors that affect development through hands-on work and field trips. You’ll also study the history, theory, and social issues connected to urban spaces. This course will help you build a solid foundation in real estate concepts like land use, community development, and urban planning.
11. Tennessee Real Estate Commission’s Real Estate Licensing Program
Location: Pre-licensing education can be completed at approved schools in Johnson City, Nashville, and Knoxville | Licensing exams are administered by PSI Services at testing centers across Tennessee, including Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, Chattanooga, and Johnson City
Cost: None
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Competitive; up to 100 students
Dates: Flexible schedule; students have 100 days to complete the program, including time after high school graduation
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions until the 100 spots are filled
Eligibility: Tennessee graduating high school seniors
The Tennessee High School Senior Real Estate Licensing Program gives local high school seniors a free way to complete the required education to take the real estate licensing exam and start a career in Tennessee. Run by the Tennessee Real Estate Commission under the Department of Commerce and Insurance, the program helps you gain experience and begin earning while finishing high school. You’ll complete a 60-hour Affiliate Broker pre-licensing course and a 30-hour New Affiliate course through Kaplan Real Estate Education. The standards remain the same as those for regular licensing, and you must meet all commission criteria. After enrolling, you’ll have 100 days to finish the program and pass both state and national exams.
12. New York Institute of Technology’s High School Business Bootcamp — Guide to Investing in Real Estate or the Stock Market: Strategic Planning
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Open / Non-competitive; cohort size not specified
Dates: Multiple sessions run between March 18 and December 16
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions
Eligibility: High school students
The New York Tech School of Management offers a free business boot camp with year-round workshops that help you prepare for college and careers. You can join individual sessions or complete all six to learn topics such as social media marketing, conflict resolution, strategic planning, and financial literacy. If you are interested in learning about real estate, the Guide to Investing in Real Estate or the Stock Market: Strategic Planning workshop will teach you how properties are valued, purchased, and sold, including key elements like deeds and mortgages. You’ll also learn how real estate compares to stocks and bonds, giving you a basic understanding of both real estate and broader financial markets.
13. Fordham University’s Real Estate Development in NYC Program
Location: Fordham University, Rose Hill Campus, Bronx, NY
Cost: $2,086 (Residential); $1,418 (Commuter) + $75 application fee; a limited number of need-based discounts are available for students who apply by April 1
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; maximum 20 students
Dates: June 22–26
Application Deadline: May 1 (Residential); May 15 (Commuter)
Eligibility: High school students who have completed their freshman year
Fordham University’s Real Estate Development in NYC Program helps high school students understand how real estate projects are developed and redeveloped across property types like office, multifamily, and mixed-use. You learn the full process from start to finish, including team roles, market analysis, stakeholders, land use, site selection, regulations, entitlements, public-private partnerships, and environmental review. The course also covers design, budgeting, feasibility, raising equity, project pro forma, financing, construction, marketing, leasing, and property management. Site visits will allow you to see how these concepts work in practice. This program will help you understand value creation, development stages, and how to evaluate projects, handle challenges, and make informed decisions throughout the process.
14. Summer@Brown Pre-College Program — Urban Planning: Law, Policy, and Social Impact
Location: Online or in person at Brown University, Providence, RI
Cost: $5,786 (Residential); $4,482 (Commuter); scholarships are available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; typically 15–20 students per class
Dates: July 13–24
Application Deadline: May 15
Eligibility: Students finishing grades 9–12 who are 14 to 18 years old by June 14
Summer at Brown Pre-College Program allows high school students to choose from over 230 non-credit courses and participate in workshops, activities, and events without the pressure of grades. In the Urban Planning: Law, Policy, and Social Impact course, you study how economic, legal, and social factors shape real estate development and city planning, with a focus on New York City. You’ll examine how local, state, and federal laws affect land use, zoning, and development. Through exercises like moot court, lobbying, and hearings, you’ll learn how policy decisions are made. This program will also help you analyze urban legal systems and understand how cities are planned, built, and managed across real estate and development contexts.
15. Columbia University's NYC Residential Summer Program — Investment Portfolio Management
Location: Columbia University, New York, NY
Cost: $12,837 per session + $80 application fee + at least $50 for course materials + course-specific fees
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; maximum of 30 students per class section
Dates: June 29 – July 17 (Session A); July 21 – August 7 (Session B)
Application Deadline: April 20 (Session A); May 11 (Session B)
Eligibility: Rising 9th–12th-grade students, including current seniors, who are 15 or older; for the residential option, students must be 15 years of age or older and turn 16 by December 31 of the year they attend
Columbia University’s NYC Residential Summer Pre-College Program allows high school students to choose from over 70 college-level courses in various subjects. You’ll also take part in college-prep sessions, faculty talks, wellness activities, and community events. If you’re interested in real estate, the Investment Portfolio Management course allows you to learn how professional managers build and manage portfolios across assets like real estate, stocks, and bonds. You’ll hear from guest speakers and connect lessons to real-world events and investor decisions. You’ll also study risk management, valuation, diversification, performance metrics, and common investor mistakes. Overall, this course can help you understand how real estate fits into broader investment strategies.
Questions Students Often Ask About These Programs
1. I'm not sure yet if I want to go into real estate specifically. Are any of these programs broad enough to still be useful if I end up pursuing a different business or finance path?
Yes, several programs are designed around transferable business and finance skills rather than real estate exclusively. Cornell AAP City Visionaries and both Columbia programs cover urban planning, investment portfolio management, and land use, all of which connect to finance, policy, and economics broadly. The Lumiere Research Scholar Program lets you choose your own research topic, so you can explore real estate adjacent subjects like urban economics without committing to real estate as a focus. Ladder Internships is the most flexible of all, placing you with startups across finance and consulting where real estate-adjacent skills like market research and financial modeling come up organically.
2. Several programs are based in New York City and cost over $10,000. Is the NYC-specific experience actually worth that premium?
New York City is genuinely one of the most active and diverse real estate markets in the world, so programs that use the city as a live case study, like Cornell AAP, NYU SPS, Fordham, and both Columbia courses, offer a level of real-world context that's difficult to replicate elsewhere. Whether that justifies the cost depends on your financial situation and how seriously you're considering real estate as a career. For students who can access scholarships or financial aid, these programs are strong investments; for students who need a more affordable entry point, NAIOP-Drexel, Marquette's MKE CRE, and New York Tech's free bootcamp all offer meaningful real estate exposure at a fraction of the cost.
3. What's the difference between a program like REEX or NAIOP-Drexel and a university pre-college course like Columbia or Brown?
REEX and NAIOP-Drexel are industry-connected programs run in partnership with real estate professional associations, meaning you're learning directly from practitioners and getting exposure to the professional network rather than primarily from academic faculty. University pre-college courses like Columbia and Brown are more classroom-oriented, drawing on academic frameworks and theory, and they're primarily structured as college-preview experiences rather than industry introductions. If you want to understand how real estate actually works in practice and meet people working in the field, the industry-connected programs tend to be stronger; if you want to understand the academic and policy frameworks behind real estate and urban development, the university courses offer more depth on that side.