Blair

Better Student Financing through Income Share Agreements

7 followers

Better Student Financing through Income Share Agreements

7 followers

We finance your tuition or costs of living. After you graduate, you pay back a percentage of your income for a fixed period of time.

Launch tags:Fintech•Investing•Education

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Clubhouse

Hey guys, interesting approach for financing post secondary education. I'm curious do investors choose which students to invest in or how do you approve / reject students?

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7yr ago

Fastgen

Maker

@omarshammas Hi Omar. Investors do not choose individual students to invest in but put their money into funds in which we pool multiple students. We approve students based on their current situation and future potential. We have a very holistic definition of this and take the major, the university, grades, extracurricular activities, and work experience into account. Since we want to offer financing to everyone we rather accept than reject and set up special funds for students with less earning potential. For these funds, we work with impact-based investors who focus on social good over returns.

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7yr ago

It's really exciting to see disruption in this space. ✨ I hope solutions like Blair can ultimately lead to a better quality of life for students post-graduation. By the way, what inspired the name Blair?

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7yr ago

Fastgen

Maker

@lizadixon Hi Liza, thank you for the comment!   Two years ago we did our first little trip to Scotland together. We stayed in an AirBnB and our host „Blair“ was pretty much an epitome of kind-heartedness and caring. She helped us a lot to have an incredible experience. We’re still in contact with her.  While brainstorming for our name and thinking about what we are trying to build and symbolize, she came up in conversation. It’s also just a beautiful name so it was a perfect match.

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7yr ago

Fastgen

Maker

Hi everyone! ✌🏻 Today, we are very excited to introduce you to Blair. 🕊 Blair offers a better way of college financing, where students pay back a certain percentage of their future income for a fixed period of time. Traditional loans leave students with an irresponsible amount of debt & do not protect them from income volatility. Our Income Share Agreements (ISAs) will protect students, by adapting to individual income circumstances, allowing them to live without fear of student debt and to pursue careers which are not controlled by loan repayments. We value the potential of a student and not their history. Therefore, we do not require a credit score or a co-signer. We are available for every major and provide a seamless experience, from getting the funding to paying it back. 🎓 Why is Blair interesting for investors? We allow investors to combine financial returns with social impact by investing in students. Investors will in turn receive a share of the graduates' income for a fixed period of time. ISAs create a new asset class ideally suited to diversify investment portfolios and offer built-in protection against inflation. 🎯 Why are we working on this? Education lays the foundation for fostering individual and social development opportunities and must be accessible to everyone. We believe that the financing of education in the US is fundamentally flawed, as no current financing model seems to be sustainable. The aggregated student debt reached $1.5 trillion and 40% of all borrowers are expected to default their payments by 2023. Many of our friends are suffering because of the status quo. We offer a better solution for a subset of students in the US and want to make it available to them. 👩🏼‍💻👨🏽‍💻To all students: Discover your individual ISA rate within one minute and compare it to traditional loans. 👩🏾‍💼👨🏼‍💼 To all investors: Get in touch with us if you are interested in investing. We are very much looking forward to hearing your feedback and wish you a lovely day! ☀️

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7yr ago

Where were you when I was in college?! I see a huge potential in Blair and I'll be telling my younger cousins about this; their parents have been saving up for their college tuition since they were born! Few questions! How will you be testing for a student's potential? Will Blair help in increasing a student's potential long term? I wonder what Blair will look like in the future when going to college won't be the norm :)

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7yr ago

Superwall

How are you sure you'll get a return on your investment? How much interest do you charge? How can you calculate risk/potential upside? Seems like a very cool idea!

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7yr ago

Fastgen

Maker

@jakemor As for all investment products, we can never guarantee a return. However, you can get reasonable estimates if your forecasts are good. We do not charge interest; students pay back a certain percentage of their future income for a fixed period of time. The core of our risk and upside assessment is based on Monte Carlo Models that simulate potential outcomes for millions of hypothetical students.

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7yr ago

Easymove

Great Idea. Education will be more affordable. Are you planning to go global? How about if someone is international student?

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7yr ago

Fastgen

Maker

@emin_aliev Hi Emin, there are currently no plans for going global. The focus, for now, will be the US. Every US citizen or permanent resident is generally eligible. We do make exceptions for international students on a case by case basis.

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7yr ago

I’m not sure I understand how this works. The suggested starting amount is $10k...but who only finances $10k for their college? I’m imagining more like $100k-$200k. If it was $200k, at a payback of 100 months (suggested on site was 96 months) that’s $2k per month before any return. That seems like a lot. What is the max you finance? What’s the longest payback window you accept?

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7yr ago

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