UniThrive - student loans from alumni

November 17, 2009 2:52 AM

New p2p social enterprise is launching tomorrow!

Hey everybody,

Sorry we have been so quiet on this front. Nimay and I are both busy at our new jobs and Josh has settled into a groove back at school. But rest assured we're also working hard behind the scenes on our UniThrive plans.

In the meantime, we wanted to share a new social enterprise startup launching tomorrow called College Confidant. Founded by some of our friends at Harvard, CC utilizes a peer to peer model to connect high school students with current undergrads or recent alumni to get advice on the usually opaque and confusing college application process.

CC seeks to increase the number of quality college advising sources available to high school students and their families, but at a cost that is not prohibitively expensive. Most private consulting companies/counselors are around $150/hour.

For more info, check out www.collegeconfidant.com. We wish our friends there the best of luck and are excited to see their progress over the coming weeks and months.

- Tanuj

0 comments

September 03, 2009 12:25 PM

First 5 loans deposited!

Great news: we deposited the first 5 UniThrive loans into students' termbill accounts with Harvard today!

Thank you to all the lenders who contributed to the loans, and good luck to our students as they start the new academic year!

0 comments

August 18, 2009 3:26 PM

Long overdue update

Hey,

Apologies for being so quiet lately. Nimay, Josh and I have been engaged in some serious strategy discussions and brainstorming sessions. We spent all of 2008 and the first half of this year so focused on building and launching the site that we felt it'd be prudent to take a step back and evaluate our progress to date and plans for the future at a 50,000 foot level.

We've been talking to other schools about expanding the UniThrive platform and continue to receive tremendous feedback from university administrators, alumni, students, parents, and various advisors in response to our pilot at Harvard. The result? We've gotten a lot of data and insight to process and that has gotten us thinking about some of the finer details of our model, vision and plan going forward. We're eager to expand the platform and scale quickly because the need to help students is ever constant but as a young and small startup, we have to do so at a pace that's healthy and viable. ("Healthy & viable" is our new favorite catchphrase by the way.)

We hope to wrap up this strategic planning process in the coming weeks and then hit the ground running again. We'll keep you posted, so stay tuned.

In other news, we've been building a team of UniThrive Analysts and are excited to have some really talented, bright and eager people join our team from Harvard, Princeton, NYU and the University of Florida.

Lastly, here's some interesting reading:

A Wall Street Journal article about growing fears of a bubble in the microfinance industry, particularly in places like India
A Fast Company article about entrepreneurs transforming American higher education

We're working on a comment system for this blog; we look forward to hearing your thoughts.

- Tanuj

PS - A good friend of UniThrive's, Jason Shah (Harvard '11) is the founder of I Need a Pencil, an acclaimed startup that provides free SAT test prep. INAP is in a Forbes business plan competition and needs votes - help them out!

2 comments

July 14, 2009 10:27 AM

Developments in the p2p industry

Today's a good day for the peer-to-peer lending industry. Prosper Marketplace (Prosper.com), one of the pioneers in this space in the U.S., has successful emerged from a regulatory review today and is resuming lending activity on its site. We want to wish everyone at Prosper congratulations and best wishes as they move forward. The team there has been nothing but supportive of UniThrive in the past year, offering tremendous advice and guidance.

You can read up on this news and how SEC approval of Prosper could potentially affect the entire industry here:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/07/13/daily13.html

http://blogs.wsj.com/wallet/2009/07/14/as-prosper-gets-the-green-light-a-comeback-for-peer-to-peer-lenders/

In other news, Kiva recently entered into the U.S. lending market, offering microloans to American entrepreneurs via two U.S.-based microfinance institutions. As with other loans on Kiva, these are interest-free. The move has sparked some serious debate amongst Kiva's enthusiastic and vocal user community, with people taking opposing views. Kiva's leadership prides itself on listening to the community and ensuring transparency and constant dialogue, so they are dedicating today's monthly community conference call to discussing this recent initiative. It's at 2pm PST today. For full details, including a letter from Kiva's president and CEO, check out the company's blog: http://www.kiva.org/about/inside

- Tanuj

0 comments

July 12, 2009 11:35 AM

Promising signs on Capitol Hill

This New York Times piece details some hopeful signs of the emerging legislative process to overhaul student lending in America. The Obama administration is seeking to remove private banks from the federal education lending systems. We do believe this is a step in the right direction; anything that better aligns the incentives of lenders with student needs is a positive thing. While this is far from definite - surely there will be a lot of negotiation going forward in both chambers of Congress before a final bill is passed - we are hopeful that this is the first of many reforms to come.

- Tanuj

0 comments

July 06, 2009 9:35 AM

We're in the Huffington Post!

We're really proud to have a blog posting on Huffington Post!

Check it out and share it!

0 comments

July 02, 2009 3:57 AM

Good news: 2 down, 6 more to go!

Hello everybody,

First off, thank you to everyone who has lent on the site and to all of you for your continued feedback, advice, and support. We would not be where we are today without you.

I wanted to share the good news - last week another loan was fully funded on the site! That means 2 of the 8 pilot students currently requesting loans are good to go.

But that also means 6 students are still seeking funds. Would you be willing to help? There are a few ways you can pitch in:

1) Lend! For as little as $50 you can make a positive difference in a student's life.

2) Invite friends to the site, either with your own email client our our service.

3) Invite your friends to also become Fans of UniThrive on Facebook (and do so yourself if you haven't already). Our Facebook page is a great way to spread word and keep you updated on our progress.

4) Share the following links to media coverage we've received:

Have a great holiday weekend,

Tanuj

PS - Good news in the student lending industry: the Education Department announced students repaying federal loans can now reduce their loan payments based on income and reduced interest rates Stafford loans. We applaud these efforts by the Obama administration and are eager to see further reform enacted in the upcoming session of congress.

0 comments

June 15, 2009 11:26 AM

Thank you!

Over the last 48 hours our team has received over 500 emails from students, parents and alumni from around the country asking how to get involved. We have been incredibly moved by the outpouring of support and appreciate the feedback.   ? ?

As was noted in Sunday’s New York Times, our goal is to expand UniThrive over the coming months to help those in need at schools that are not as generous as Harvard (we had chosen to launch at Harvard for logistical reasons, taking advantage of our familiarity with the institution).  ? ?

Making higher education affordable is critical in this current economy, and we believe that UniThrive is a creative solution that could have a tremendous impact on students across the United States. Our goal is to engage a diverse group of alumni in lending small amounts that ultimately, end up making a big difference in a student’s life. Right now, the UniThrive team is working in conjunction with a number of universities to expand this program as quickly as possible. ? ?

We are thrilled to receive the media coverage we’ve had, but wanted to make clear that we do not believe that work-study commitments are wasteful.

I am a strong believer that school is not just about what you learn inside the classroom but also what you gain from extra-curricular activities such as  student clubs or volunteer work. ? ?

It’s a tough balance and making decisions about how to spend your time outside of the classroom is not easy. Many of my close friends from college couldn’t participate in volunteer programs because their non-classroom time was dedicated towards paying for school. UniThrive’s goal is to help defray some of the costs of education, so that students can spend time outside of the classroom on projects on which that they otherwise would not have been able to participate.  ? ?

As we expand to schools that don't share Harvard's financial aid capabilities, we hope that our platform will go even further in helping students lower the burdensome costs of education.?

Thanks again for your feedback!

Best,

Josh

0 comments

June 12, 2009 9:59 PM

Our first press!

Exciting news: UniThrive is in the New York Times! The article will be in print in the Sunday Style Section on June 14, 2009.

Also, we'd appreciate it if you join our Facebook Page and become a Fan of UniThrive. This is a great way for us to publicize the site and keep you informed of our progress.

0 comments

June 10, 2009 5:47 PM

Exciting developments in p2p lending

It's been a while since the last post on the blog - sorry for that. Nimay and I got a bit busy with Commencement and Josh is working hard as always.

In case you haven't seen, there have been some exciting developments in the world of peer-to-peer lending recently:

1) Vittana.org was recently launched. Vittana takes Kiva's model of micro-lending to the developing world and applies it to the market for education. Vittana lets people like you and me help students in impoverished nations afford advanced education, which as we all know is one of the fundamental keys to breaking the cycle of poverty.

2) Kiva.org entered the market for U.S. loans today! That's some really exciting stuff. Kiva has already proven to be a leader in this space with its successful financing of over $75 million in microloans since October 2005. With its entry into the U.S. small business lending market, hopefully they can create some really positive change right here at home while continuing to do good abroad.

But enough about everyone else...let me tell you about what's going on with UniThrive. We've been hard at work during this pilot phase at Harvard. We have a handful of students on the site right now requesting loans and all of them have already had several of our many alumni users make loan pledges to them. We're currently focusing on our marketing efforts to bring more alumni lenders to the site.

Additionally, we've already begun work on expansion. We're working overtime to figure out which schools would be best to expand to and how to make that happen. Indeed we've already begun speaking with a few institutions about bringing UniThrive to their campus.

This summer we'll also be working on fundraising to ensure we have the resources in place to support our growth moving forward.

The path isn't always easy but we are in this for the long haul. We really believe in UniThrive and the positive impact it could have for countless students, like the ones that Reed University had to turn away because the current economic climate is hampering its ability to meet financial aid obligations.

Until next time,

Tanuj

0 comments

UniThrive Blog