AU students will be equipped with more ways to pay for college when GradeFund, a company that pays students for good grades, gets a makeover in three months.
Using GradeFund, students can get their friends and family to sponsor them, paying a certain amount of money if they get high marks in their classes, according to GradeFund’s Web site. Once the student sends in his or her transcript, GradeFund verifies the grades and sends the student a check.
Eric Stromberg, the vice president of Campus Destinations, GradeFund’s new parent company, said that the acquisition was a no-brainer because Campus Destinations and GradeFund share a common mission of helping students save money. Campus Destinations has a textbook search engine system that helps students find the best deal on textbooks and gives students discounts at vendors such as Chipotle and Shoes.com, according to the Campus Destinations Web site.
Campus Destinations will be bringing these and other partner corporations to GradeFund to financially sponsor individual students or groups of students that meet the corporations’ academic criteria. Stromberg said that adding more corporate sponsors will help GradeFund build a better presence on college campuses.
Campus Destinations will focus on making GradeFund more user-friendly and efficient, according to Stromberg.
Stromberg said that Campus Destinations’ main goal is to build on GradeFund’s previous successes.
“We’re going to keep what works from the original model [of GradeFund], but we will be taking GradeFund to another level academically,” Stromberg said. “We will be moving towards a system where students can earn even more money.”
Some students and faculty members at AU are skeptical of GradeFund’s money-centered approach to college. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, a School of International Service professor and the director of the General Education program, said that he does not like that GradeFund so closely ties education with finance.
“The take-home message would be that learning and knowledge are instrumental means to financial ends,” Jackson said. “We have more than enough of that in higher education today as far as I’m concerned, so I’d discourage people from using this system for fear that it would further erode the purpose of a college education.”
Chloe Falivene, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said that GradeFund is taking away from the real purpose of going to university.
“It skews the focus of school,” Falivene said. “School should be about learning, not monetary gain. This would make good grades a commodity instead of something for personal fulfillment.”
Alicia Branco, a sophomore in SIS, did not see a problem with GradeFund. She said that it would be a great help to students who are struggling to pay their tuition.
“It already costs so much to come here, and it’s really the same as getting a scholarship,” Branco said. “I don’t necessarily agree with the idea of a student having to get an A in every class, but something like [GradeFund] could give students the incentive to do better in school than they normally would.”
You can reach this staff writer at jryan@theeagleonline.com.
