The Founding Promise

This is a refund guarantee offered by Atheneum Academy LLC. It is not a prediction about your student. We are not representing that any particular student will earn $1,000,000, that our students typically earn it, or that any student is likely to. We do not publish earnings figures for our students and we do not collect them.

What we are doing is pricing our own risk. We think a student who finishes this path is equipped to earn well, and we are willing to carry the cost of being wrong about that. The figure in this promise is the threshold at which we agree to bear that cost. It is deliberately high, and it is deliberately easy to claim.

Nothing in this promise is educational, career, tax, or financial advice, and nothing in it guarantees admission, employment, income, or any other outcome. See Terms §8 (“Important Disclaimers”), which continues to apply in full.

The promise applies to a single named student, on the account that paid that student’s curriculum tuition, where all of the following are true:

• The promise was added for that student before his last lesson on the required coursework, and this document was presented and accepted at that time. See §2.1.
• Curriculum tuition was paid for that student for every academic year in which he was enrolled on the path, and the account was not cancelled for non-payment.
• The required coursework was completed as described in §3.

There is no grade requirement and no age requirement. A student may begin this path in grade 7, in grade 11, or anywhere between, and is fully eligible. The promise is about finishing the required work — not about how many years were spent finishing it. Eligibility is per student, not per family.

Before the student’s last lesson on the required coursework. That is the only timing rule, and it is the one condition in this document that cannot be satisfied after the fact.

The reason is straightforward: a guarantee has to be taken on before the result is known. A family adding it after the coursework is finished would be choosing it with the outcome already settled and nothing left for it to be held against. Added before the last lesson — at any point, however late in the path — the election came first and the work came after.

Adding the promise costs nothing and changes no coursework. The path is identical whether or not this promise is attached to it.

Three conditions, all evaluated from the records already kept in your Romeschool account. There is no separate submission, portfolio review, or examination.

(a) Every required course on the Founding Path, finished, in track order. The required courses are the Romeschool-authored courses shown on the Founding Path. Courses you source yourself — the standard mathematics and science sequence, and any elective — are not required for this promise and are not evaluated, because we did not write them.

(b) The sequence was respected. Grammaticus, Ars Logica and 4 semesters of Wisdom & Character coursework must be complete before Via Rhetorica is begun. The remaining Wisdom & Character coursework may be taken alongside or after it.

(c) The work was logged. Reading and written work must appear in the student’s logbook and portfolio at or above the thresholds published with these terms. The pace is yours. There is no minimum number of years and no maximum: a student who compresses the path finishes sooner and is fully eligible.

The window opens on the later of two dates:

• the date of the student’s final logbook entry on the required coursework; and
• the date the student first begins earning.

Earning includes self-employment. Wages, salary, contract work, and revenue of a business the student owns all count, and a student who starts a business rather than taking a job is squarely within this promise — that is an intended result of this course of study, not an edge case.

If the student has not begun earning, the clock has not started and the window has not opened. It cannot expire against a student who never began.

Cumulative gross earnings over the 4-year window, added together across all 4 years — not earnings in any single year. Gross means before tax and before expenses. Where the student owns a business, gross revenue of that business counts.

If the total across those 4 years is less than $1,000,000, the promise is triggered.

Write to support@romeschool.app from the account email, after the 4-year window has closed, and tell us the student did not reach $1,000,000. Include the student’s name.

Your word is the evidence. We will not ask for bank statements, tax returns, pay stubs, employer letters, or any other documentation of earnings, and we will not dispute the figure you give us. We reserve no right to audit it.

Claims are open for one year after the window closes. We will process a valid claim within 30 days of receiving it.

The curriculum tuition actually paid for that student, for every year he was enrolled on the path — the full amount, not a prorated share, and not reduced by how much of the course of study he used.

Not included, because they were never charged for: the planner, logbook, records, filings and ESA tools, which are free for every account.

Tuition is the ceiling. This promise does not cover lost income, opportunity cost, the cost of other curricula, tutoring, college expenses, or any other loss, and it is not a warranty of the student’s results. Our total liability under this promise is the tuition you paid for that student.

These terms carry a version (2026-08-13), and the version in force on the date you elected the path is the version your claim is evaluated against. We may revise this promise for students enrolling later. We will not apply a revision retroactively to a student already on the path.

If we discontinue the promise for new enrollments, students already on the path keep it.

Two different guarantees exist and they are not alternatives to one another:

• The satisfaction refund (Terms §5) is a short window at the start: a full refund through the middle of your first semester. It refunds because the curriculum was not what you wanted.
• The Founding Promise (this document) opens years later, after the coursework and the 4-year earning window. It refunds because the curriculum did not do what we said it would.

Taking the first ends your enrollment and with it your eligibility for the second. Declining the first has no effect on the second.

This promise is written to be collected on. We have removed every barrier we could think of — no documentation, no audit, no dispute process — because a guarantee that is hard to claim is not a guarantee.

What we ask in return is that it be claimed as it is meant: by a family whose student genuinely did the work and genuinely did not reach the figure. We reserve the right to decline a claim where the coursework in §3 was not actually done — that is the one condition we do check, and we check it against your own logbook, which you can read at any time.

This promise is offered by Atheneum Academy LLC and is governed by the same law and venue as the Terms & Conditions, which continue to apply in full. Where this document and the Terms conflict on the subject of this promise, this document controls. It is not transferable and has no cash value except as a refund of tuition paid.

Questions before you elect the path are welcome and answered plainly: support@romeschool.app.