Blair - Financing students through Income Share Agreements.

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! ☀️

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?

Awesome idea - looks like a fantastic way to bridge the gap between students and investors in a more equitable, transparent and efficient way. Access to education is a huge problem, so innovative models like this will hopefully prove to be a catalyst for good. Looking forward to seeing you all kick more goals!

Great idea - proof of concept already exists on a small scale, excited to see how this plays out on a larger playing field!

I truly wish this was as easy to do as you guys have made it when I was heading into college. Raising the bar for college financing and helping students get the education they deserve 🚀

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?

It is a working model in germany

Pros:

Great alternative to traditional student loans. Takes away the pressure of students as you only pay a percentage of your income.

Cons:

not that I am aware of.

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 :)

I am financing my own studies with a similar model - gerat to see it expanding to the US! Takes away the pressure associated with taking a student loan. You focus on developing your carreer, rather than on paying back your debt.

I liked the lean approach and concept of the idea. It is a real problem which affects millions of people. If the background of the idea is structured well it will have a large market to go. Congratulations.

Pros:

Logical business model. Design and concept.

Cons:

Not seems any.

I'm using the same model in Germany and it allows me to have a great education without a wealthy family.

Pros:

Concept, Vision, Design

Cons:

Nothing I'm aware of.

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

Do be in dept is not only a hard situation for the student but also for the whole family.

Pros:

Right market and right timing! Great idea to provide students with the opportunity and freedom they deserve.

Cons:

Nothing so far

This is a really great idea, it's fantastic!!!! But if you ask me it's shouldn't just be centered on the US cizitens . there are scholars with the potentials to go to schools and work towards their dreams of adding values to the nations but are discouraged with the fees associated with it. For example places like some countries in Africa such as Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana e.t.c hoping to either go for their graduate or post-graduation. Your company will be doing a all lot of good to the world at large if you consider this points of mine Thanks

there are enough scholarships to fix this...

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!

When enrolling, the 2nd option if you click on "Soon", you still get asked "Where do you study?". Willamette University isn't an option. Additionally I don't see a "other" option. Not sure if this is an option for DACA students, who are not U.S. citizens, but are authorized to work. Would be awesome, if it allowed anyone not depending on your legal status, but also give you the opportunity to pay back if you moved to a different country.

Pros:

Disrupts the current finance opportunities for a higher education. Don't need credit score or cosigner.

Cons:

Questions for getting a quote are not complete.

It's amazing product but for what countries students is it there? & is it also available for International students?

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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?