Making the most of PSEO

One word describes University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management student Yinebeb Kebede, '25 BSB, and his academic journey: unique.

Most people earn a degree before creating a business, but Kebede breaks the mold. While still attending DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis, the Brooklyn Center native founded a nonprofit to assist schools in his family’s home country of Ethiopia.

“I've always gravitated toward news about big companies, big business decisions, and even toward the stock market pretty early on—anything correlated to business,” he said. “I would definitely say it was initiated by my dad's pursuit of business.”

His father originally worked as a real estate agent after their family immigrated to the United States in the early 2000s, and he now works as a broker. Kebede shares his father’s interest in finance, choosing it as his college major. 

But that’s not the only thing he’s majoring in. 

Kebede is also pursuing degrees in mathematics, accounting, and management information systems. That’s right. He’s quadruple-majoring in all of them. And that’s not even mentioning the business law minor.

His titanic academic load was made possible by the Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program at the University. Through the program, motivated high school juniors and seniors can take classes at the University for both high school and college credit. The cost of tuition, course fees, and textbooks is in most cases (but not always) covered by the Minnesota Department of Education.

Kebede notes that because of his early completion of college prerequisites, he was able to start taking courses in his major as a college freshman. He also had the flexibility to enroll in courses of personal interest, such as Real Estate Law, Contract Law and Corporate Regulation, and Introduction to American Law and Legal Reasoning.

“Because of the credits I accumulated as a PSEO student, I am now able to have four majors, all while having a manageable credit load every semester,” says Kebede. “My experience in PSEO also prepared me for being in a self-guided environment. … It helped me come to college with the proper discipline and study habits to achieve academic success early on.”

Kebede, who will be a senior in the fall, hopes to support others in the campus community, as he stays involved with organizations like the Carlson School Ambassadors, UMN National Association of Black Accountants, Emerging Leaders of Color, and Diverse Leaders For Tomorrow.

“I had a couple of mentors who had done a lot of impact in terms of promoting diversity,” he remembers, “and that’s something I’ve found myself to be super passionate about, not just within the school itself, but with diversity in corporate America and greater society.”

This story is adapted from the Carlson School of Management and the College of Continuing & Professional Studies.