Student Affair

Teen entrepreneurs compete for cash.

By Zaheera Wahid • Dec 1, 1999

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Long gone are the days when teens couldn't wait to donMcDonald's uniforms and start their first jobs. Today'steens have higher aspirations--they dream of becoming notemployees, but entrepreneurs.

"Almost every student, in the back of his or her mind,wants to own a business," says Tim Coffey, corporatedevelopment director for Reston, Virginia-based DistributiveEducation Clubs of America (DECA) Inc. That much is obvious atDECA's annual conference, the Entrepreneurship ParticipatingEvent, which has been attracting young entrepreneurs for more than30 years.

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