An NFL player who saves almost all his salary teaches a Wharton class called 'Life 101', and his first assignment shocks students

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NFL player Brandon Copeland of the New York Jets teaches a financial literacy class at Wharton.

• New York Jets linebacker Brandon Copeland has a Wall Street background, runs his own real estate business, and teaches a financial literacy class at Wharton.
• Nicknamed "Life 101," the class "deals with the realities of life" by teaching various financial topics, Copeland told Business Insider.
• In the first class, he has all students do an exercise that "brings them down to earth:" create an estimated budget based on their expected earnings.

New York Jets linebacker Brandon Copeland, 27, has a financial acumen as strong as his game on the football field.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's The Wharton School, Copeland interned at investment bank UBS for two summers during college and worked remotely for Wall Street firm Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers during the 2017 NFL off-season, according to ESPN.

Copeland, whose NFL salary is a reported $1.2 million, according to Spotrac, told Business Insider he saves almost all of his salary. He also has experience flipping houses, runs his own real estate company with his wife, and currently teaches a financial literacy class at his alma mater with UPenn's Dr. Brian Peterson.

The class, which Copeland nicknamed "Life 101," tackles financial topics on everything from buying a first home and buying versus leasing a car to student loan debt and credit.

"The point is to go through the realities of life and all these things we have to deal with," he said. "If you make a financial mistake, you can end up paying for that mistake for 30 years of your life. The goal is to have the students in my class be able to make these big goals and make them more confidently."

Read more: Rob Gronkowski saved his entire $54 million career earnings in the NFL by following one simple money rule

In the first class, Copeland focuses on teaching students that what they make is not what they spend and that some expenses may be out of control, depending on where they live. To do this, he walks them "through an estimated budget based on what they expect to make."

Copeland first has students look up the average salary of what they want to do for work or want to earn. He then takes them through their budget one item at a time, looking at expenses for things like Netflix, cable, cell phone bills, and student loan payments, he said. He has students apply certain costs, such as average rent, based on their desired living location; living in a more expensive place like New York or California can affect their budget.

The results of this first-day assignment shocked many students, Copeland said.

"Some people go over budget and realize they have to rethink their lifestyle - that's the initial come-down-to-earth moment," he said. While discussing the importance of a budget with students, he tries to get them to understand that if they want a certain career or lifestyle, they might need to do something else to supplement it or do it a different state, he said.

"I get them think about [financial decisions] rather than diving right in," he said. "I tell them, 'I'm not trying to kill your dreams, I'm trying to enable your dreams.'"