Some people raise money for every mile they run in a long-distance race. Now two brothers, Michael and Matthew Kopko, have developed a Web site called GradeFund that applies this “marathon model” to helping students raise money for college.
The site enables students to create online profiles and invite family and friends to register as “sponsors” — people who make pledges of financial assistance to individual students based on the grades they earn at the end of each term. Corporate sponsors may also donate money to students who are interested in a subject that is related to their organization.
Launched about two weeks ago, GradeFund is managed by a team of seven people and already has about 900 users, according to Michael Kopko. He says between 15 percent and 25 percent of users are registered as sponsors; the rest are students. The creators of GradeFund also plan to launch a transcript-based job board in January that will enable employers to search for applicants based on their grades in a specific subject area.
The Kopko brothers came up with the idea for GradeFund when they learned that the girlfriend of a high-school buddy — who is now GradeFund’s chief financial officer — was going to graduate with about $120,000 in student-loan debt. Michael and Matthew, who recently earned degrees in economics at Harvard and Princeton Universities, respectively, saw an opportunity for students to profit from long hours spent staked out in the campus library.
“We’re going to help kids down the path of turning their grades into useful things,” Michael Kopko said in an interview with The Chronicle. So far, he said, the highest amount raised per A is $400. —Caitlin Moran
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