According to the CIRR, around 71% of coding bootcamp graduates land jobs within 180 days of graduating. While some programs have higher placement rates than the average, it’s important not to rely on the odds being in your favor.

Start the process of optimizing your resume, networking with people in the industry, and applying to roles before graduating. Then, consider submitting applications at top tech companies using the strategies below.

Start the Process During School

There’s no guarantee that you’ll receive a job right after graduating. But if you make use of your time while in school, you can increase the odds that you will.

Step 1: Network

Before you start imagining shaking hands and having stiff conversations with old folks, know that networking today is wildly different (and far more exciting). Networking can be as simple as:

• Finding alumni of your bootcamp program on LinkedIn and sending them a message to ask about their experience after graduating
• Finding hiring managers at dream companies on LinkedIn and engaging with their posts
• Attending virtual events, like coding conferences and trainings, and asking meaningful questions. (Make sure to follow up with the instructor or presenter after to connect with them.)
• Chatting with fellow classmates

Research has found that around 85% of jobs are found through networking. So, the more people in your network, the better.

Step 2: Attend Job Fairs

Due to the virtual nature of many programs, online bootcamps often provide virtual career services. This includes virtual job fairs, networking events, and more.

When you can, be sure to attend the job fair. You’ll meet a variety of employers — all of which are open to hiring bootcamp grads — and can get your foot in the door early. This could lead to lining up a post-grad job before you even graduate.

Step 3: Apply Before Graduating

Begin your search early. The average hiring process takes around three to six weeks, and even longer for new positions, inexperienced hiring managers, and for larger companies. While you might graduate in June, start your search in March or April. This will ensure that you’re ahead of the curve and leave plenty of time to accommodate the hiring process.

When applying, pay attention to the effectiveness of your strategy. If you find that submitting applications on sites like Indeed, Monster, and ZipRecruiter isn’t yielding results, consider taking a different approach. One Hack Reactor graduate said he only started seeing results in his job application process when he began emailing hiring managers directly with his application.

Step 4: Take on Freelance Work or Internships to Build Up Your Resume

If you’re concerned about getting lost in the mix of applications because you’re a bootcamp student, consider taking on freelance work to gain additional experience. While most employers view bootcamp degrees favorably, a small percentage believe bootcamp grads aren’t as prepared or likely to be high performers as candidates with a computer science degree, according to an Indeed study.

One hiring manager shared a bit of advice for bootcamp grads to counteract this — make sure to highlight other experience besides your degree if you want to stand out in the flood of applications. This can be in the form of freelance work, internships, or contributing to other projects.

Step 5: Contribute to Open Source Projects

If you have a hard time landing an internship or booking a client for freelance work, consider contributing to an open source project. Open source projects give you an opportunity to put your skills to the test and gain hands-on experience. You can also contribute to them for free, on your own time, giving you flexibility that freelance work and internships might not offer.

There are a variety of open source projects you can contribute to, such as:

• 30 Seconds of Code
• First Contributions on Github
• Zulip
• TensorFlow

Tech Companies That Hire Bootcamp Grads

To kick off your application process, here’s a few tech companies that hire bootcamp grads:

Adobe

Named as one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For, Adobe is the place to be. They actively hire from bootcamps such as Fullstack Academy and General Assembly, but are open to others.

Cisco

In 2022, Cisco was named one of the World’s Best Workplaces — for the twelfth year in a row. They hire data analysts, software engineers, and security research engineers from bootcamps like Hack Reactor.

Meta (Formerly Known as Facebook)

As the first social network to surpass one billion registered users, Meta is an incredibly fast-growing company to work for. With over 14,000 employee reviews, they’ve earned a rating of 4.0 out of 5.0 stars — which is high for such a massive company. 

Google

As the world’s largest search engine, Google is always on the hunt for new talent to join their team. They hire from bootcamps such as Coding Dojo, Flatiron School Fullstack Academy, and more. 

Slack

Over the years, Slack has earned a variety of awards — Best Company Culture, Best Compensation, and Best Company for Women to name a few. So, it’s no surprise that they receive rave reviews of 4.4 out of 5.0 stars from employees. They hire mostly from Hackbright Academy but are open to other bootcamp graduates.

Final Thoughts

To land a job after coding bootcamp, it’s important to start the process early — or kick it into high gear now if you’re reading this just weeks before graduation. Network with people in the industry, gain some hands-on experience you can add to your resume, and be strategic about how and where you apply.

It’s no secret — the nursing field is suffering. For years, healthcare experts have called out the increasing demand for nurses as a major threat to our healthcare systems. Based on estimations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States will need an additional 203,200 registered nurses (RNs) every year between now and 2031 to meet the demand.

Yet enrollment in nursing school isn’t growing at the pace necessary to meet it. In fact, enrollment in entry-level baccalaureate programs increased by just 3.3% in 2021. This leaves many in the industry wondering why future nurses aren’t enrolling and how schools can respond. Here’s what we think.

Why Is There Such a Demand?

There are a few reasons why demand is high:

#1: Baby boomers, or those born between 1946 and 1964, are aging. Given that there’s so many of them, the demand for geriatric care is about to increase significantly — smaller generations don’t have the same impact.

#2: There’s a shortage of nursing instructors. Without enough qualified nursing instructors, fewer nurses are graduating and entering the field. This leads to major gaps in nursing staffs all across the country.

#3: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has led to more patients in need of care. When the ACA was successfully able to reduce rates for uninsured patients, more patients began to seek care. While this is a positive result, as more people are able to access the care they need, more nurses are needed to meet the demand.

#4: Experienced nurses are leaving the field. It’s been estimated that around a million registered nurses will be leaving the workforce by 2030. While disappointing, it’s no surprise given the workload, toxic culture, and emotional strain the profession can sometimes come with.

The Impact

One might assume that a nursing shortage simply leads to more time in the waiting room, but the impact is far more significant. While some states have legal patient-to-nurse ratios, others don’t. This allows healthcare facilities to push the limits of their nursing staff, assigning far more patients to each nurse than they should.

This leads to more errors, higher morbidity, and higher mortality rates. Plus, caring for too many patients at once will lead nurses to experience more frustration and exhaustion at work, leading to lower job satisfaction, lower retention rates, and a stronger desire to leave the profession — making the problem much worse.

Why Aren’t Future Nurses Enrolling?

While the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly made some folks reconsider their dream to be a nurse, the students aren’t entirely to blame for the lack of enrollment. In fact, one of the biggest roadblocks in enrolling more nursing students is the lack of instructors. Without them, programs face limited capacity, which in turn generates fewer certified nurses.

And this isn’t much of a surprise — nursing educators are required to have advanced degrees but earn just a fraction of a bedside nurse. The incentive to teach is nonexistent.

On top of that, finding opportunities for clinical or hands-on training is challenging, especially following the pandemic. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, more than 80,000 qualified applicants were turned away in 2020 due to shortages of faculty, clinical sites, and other resources — and this doesn’t even include those that applied to community colleges.

Without the instructors needed to teach, or the clinical experience needed for students to graduate, programs are left with little resources to educate the next generation of nurses.

What Schools Should Do

While one single school can’t solve the nursing shortage themselves, it’s important to think about what you can do to help mitigate the problem. Here are a few ideas:

Provide incentives for staff. The first step to enrolling more nursing students is to have enough instructors to meet the demand. Offering a competitive pay structure with added incentives, like strong benefits, may lead to more applications.

Offer rolling admission. If you do have the faculty and clinical space to accommodate students, offer rolling admission to attract more students.

Give students flexible financing options. The number one reason students fail to enroll is a lack of funding. To bridge the gap between acceptance and enrollment, make sure your future students have flexible financing options that allow them to fund their education in the manner that works best for them.

Provide more training and guidance around state-specific certifications. Several states require nurses to have additional certifications beyond their standard degree in nursing. To make the process easier, give students the option to receive additional training and support necessary to pass their certifications.

Team up with other programs to offer dual admissions. The University of Chicago partnered with City Colleges of Chicago’s Malcolm X College to form a dual degree program. This allows students to complete their degree in less than four years, which saves them both time and money, and is thus attracting a diverse set of students.

Partner with local public health organizations for clinical rotations. If traditional settings aren’t able to accommodate students for clinical rotations, consider partnering with local public health organizations instead. Students will be able to gain the experience necessary to graduate, while the local community benefits too.

We get it – the stats aren’t the most motivating. College enrollment dropped 4.7% between spring 2021 and 2022, and many experts are suggesting that this decline is here to stay.

As an institution, however, simply making peace with it isn’t enough. Having low numbers year after year isn’t sustainable, and it’s crucial to set up your game plan for keeping enrollment as high as possible.

If you’re curious about how to increase enrollment, here’s 6 simple steps to help you get there.

What’s Inside:

• Up Your Marketing Game
• Get Comfortable with Video
• Make It Easier for Students to Get Financing
• Improve Visibility with SEO
• Secure More Reviews from Students
• Lower Your Response Times with Automated Messaging

#1: Up Your Marketing Game

We know you’ve heard it before, but hear us out. The marketing world is changing, and it’s important to keep up.

Put yourself in a potential student’s shoes — what type of content would resonate with you? If your strategy feels stale and you aren’t excited to launch the content, your audience will likely feel the same way.

Instead, look to institutions having success online and mirror what they do. Take the University of Georgia and Baylor University for example. By hopping on platforms where their future students exist and creating content that is both entertaining and informative, they’ve been able to grow a presence online while attracting new applicants.

#2: Get Comfortable With Video

It’s official — we’re living in the era of short-form video. With the rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, more and more people have grown comfortable with absorbing bits of information through easy-to-digest video content. For schools, this creates an incredible opportunity to leverage video content to attract and retain new students.

It’s what platforms are prioritizing in their algorithms, which means your content is likely to perform better, too. Some studies even report that video content performs 1200% better in comparison to other formats. This comes as no surprise given that Instagram favors Reels in its algorithm, and LinkedIn video content gets nearly 5 times the engagement.

Plus, customers retain 95% of the information they watch in a video, and 37% of them watch videos all the way to the end. By capturing more students’ attention, they’re more likely to remember your content and your institution when it comes time to enroll. 

If you’re finding that static content like newsletters, traditional social media posts, and static ads aren’t generating the results you want, try implementing video content into your strategy.

#3: Make It Easier for Students to Get Financing

Creating a killer TikTok strategy will help in creating a well-rounded strategy to increase enrollment, but it won’t address the root issue — a lack of flexible financing options. Reality is, the cost of an education has grown tremendously, and wages aren’t mirroring this growth.

This leaves 38% of students opting to not enroll, simply due to their fears around the cost of an education. While you can’t hand them a check, you can provide them with flexible financing options that make affording that cost much more simple.

A lender marketplace, like Meratas, requires minimal setup and upkeep but generates long term results. Unlike the traditional loan process — which requires students to hop from site to site in search of a loan — Meratas provides you with the all-in-one solution. Students get access to an entire marketplace built for them, with a variety of loan options to choose from.

When students have the means to afford the education they desire, and when they experience less friction in acquiring a loan, they’re far more likely to convert into a fully enrolled student.

#4: Improve Visibility with SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of getting your institution’s web pages to be recognized and ranked by Google. Once you’ve got a solid SEO strategy down, prospective students will be able to find your website when searching for related questions like “Best certificate program for tech” or “Top trade school near me.” 

If your website isn’t ranking in searches, however, it’ll make it significantly harder for eager students to find your institution when looking online. Nearly 25% percent will click the first link that shows up, leaving your institution’s pages unclicked and unnoticed.

While implementing an SEO strategy can take a bit of legwork upfront, you can reap the benefits of it for years to come. 

#5: Secure More Reviews from Students

Think of enrolling like booking a luxury vacation — you likely wouldn’t book a hotel or an excursion without checking the reviews. Before spending your hard-earned cash, you want to ensure the experience will be enjoyable, worth your money, and legitimate.

Choosing where to enroll for an education is similar. Prospective students wonder what the program is really like, whether other students have enjoyed their experience there, and if the program will be worth shelling out a few thousand dollars for.

To bridge the gap, encourage students — both current students and alumni — to submit honest reviews about their experience with the program. They can do this through Google My Business, sites like Niche, or directly through your website. Then, incorporate their statements in marketing materials, such as social media posts and on your website.

#6: Lower Your Response Times with Automated Messaging

Support throughout the enrollment process is key, and today’s students expect speedy response times to their inquiries. If you’re taking a bit longer to respond, it might leave students feeling unsupported, which doesn’t give them the warm and fuzzy feeling they’d prefer to have when making their enrollment decisions.

Instead, implement automation software that lets prospective students know you’ve received their question, are working on an answer for them, and will get back to them as soon as possible. The more supported they feel, the more likely they are to think fondly of your institution when it comes time to select where they want to enroll.

Since the pandemic admission rates showed a considerable decline.

Nationwide, fewer students went back to school again in 2022, dragging undergraduate enrollment down another 3.1% from 2021, according to a recent report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Now more than ever, strategies to reach students wherever they are and giving them the confidence and knowledge to succeed in their  journey are important.

One important way to give students that confidence and increase enrollment is by offering a “Buy Now, Pay Later’ solution. Colleges, Universities, and boot camps alike are using flexible financing to add more options to increase accessibility for more students. 

Buy Now Pay Later also assists those who can’t access federal financial aid, especially anyone attending alternative education, like coding boot camps.

The number one thing we’ve identified as a barrier to increasing enrollment is too few payment options for students. Unfortunately, students have limited options when it comes to paying for their education. With flexible financing like BNPL, students and schools can align their goals and create a better educational experience. 

Because flexible financing increases accessibility to students, schools are able to increase enrollment and fill empty seats. Offering flexible tuition options to your students is far and away the best method to increase enrollment while also increasing revenue for schools.

Meratas has taken all of the financing options students want and combined them with all the benefits of Buy Now, Pay Later. We call it: Learn Now, Pay Later.

1. What is Learn Now Pay Later?

Instead of Buy Now Pay Later we’ve repurposed this thought towards educational financing. The pay in 4 is 4 separate installments over the course of several months. The pay in 4 can be combined with our other products. Learn Now Pay Later: Pay in 4 is basically an installment plan that you set up over the course of a few months for your students.

2. Why Schools Should Have a Buy Now, Pay Later Option

Students are already familiar with Buy Now Pay Later, which makes offering Learn Now Pay Later easier for students to understand and make the right decision for financing their education. “4 easy payments of $19.99” is becoming the default choice for a lot of people when shopping. Being able to offer that option to your students: breaking down their payment into 4 easy payments of _____ over the course of several months, will help your students learn more…and be able to pay later.

Because they’re familiar with it and it’s becoming the go to choice for consumers these days who want to make bigger purchases. 

25% of students polled in this study said they are “very or extremely” interested in BNPL for their education. BNPL plans are also statistically shown to increase conversions and sales which for the education world, means increased enrollment and better outcomes.  

Finally, opening access to your program through more tuition options means increasing diversity, inclusion, and improving outcomes for more students.

Meratas: The Learn Now, Pay Later Platform

Partners choose Meratas for a few simple reasons:

They have increased enrollment, diversified their income, and scaled their programs. In addition, 9 out of 10 students polled said they wouldn’t have considered their program without a flexible financing option.

Our approach to alternative financing options puts schools and students at the center of what we do. We create tuition programs that are fair and flexible for your students and profitable for you.


Meratas has taken all of the financing options students want and combined them with all the benefits of Buy Now, Pay Later. We call it: Learn Now, Pay Later.

Meratas help schools leverage the power of Learn Now, Pay Later Financing Options to drive student enrollment. At Meratas, our mission is to improve lives by unlocking potential and using that education to help people build a lasting career. The Meratas platform is an all in one tuition solution that houses all your tuition options in one place. No more having to deal with multiple companies for all your different programs. We are committed to providing students, educators and schools with a complete tuition payment platform. Meratas makes managing student payments easier than ever before, providing you with a complete end-to-end solution to manage all tuition related payments through one simple interface. 

With all of our tuition options, you can combine different options to best support your needs and even use it to overcome funding obstacles.

Buy Now Pay Later is Here to Stay

Buy Now Pay Later is here to stay and for good reason. BNPL gives consumers more options to pay for big ticket items and helps to make big purchase items such as education more manageable. The shift in perspective to using this for programs has long been inevitable and we’re excited for the number of schools that are beginning to use this form of financing that we like to call Learn Now Pay Later.

Meratas is positioning itself as the leading provider for Learn Now Pay Later tuition solutions. The Meratas platform offers state-of-the-art technology and ease-of-use to help you manage student cash flow, reduce administrative costs and create better financial outcomes for your students. The Meratas platform makes it easy for you to get the most out of your tuition programs. If you’re ready to increase enrollment at your school and offer students a better way to pay. Schedule a meeting with a tuition specialist today to learn more about how the Meratas platform can help you reach your program’s goals. 

Income Share Agreements, or ISAs for short, are a growing alternative to traditional student loans. In the world of new financing approaches, Income Share Agreements are unique.  But many are starting to think of them as a tool to help startup founders and entrepreneurs. 

Don’t know what an ISA is? Here’s a quick overview: usually, with an ISA, your upfront payment for a service like education is deferred. Instead, you agree to pay back a percentage of your income over a set number of months. Think of it like deferred tuition but with added benefits since your repayments are linked to your income.

The percentage and period of time vary depending on ISA. For example, a student may receive tuition upfront for 5% of their income during the 48 months after graduation. ISA terms vary between ISA funders and have many benefits, but this is a basic overview. If you want to learn more about Income Share Agreements, you can check out our Ultimate Guide to ISAs. ISAs are most well-known as a tool for educators and students.

 But how might someone apply the principles of an ISA to funding for a startup?

ISAs for Entrepreneurs

Income share agreements are most commonly used to fund education and career development, but they are gaining potential for founders seeking early capital to start a business. 

With an ISA, the percentage you pay will stay the same even as your income varies. Meaning that your payments are linked directly to your income which ensures payments are always manageable. 

ISAs also include a salary floor, so your payments are paused if you’re earning under a certain amount. This feature is essential for founders who may experience periods with little to no income.

Most ISA’s also include a repayment cap, so once you reach that set total amount, you’re finished with your payments, regardless of whether or not you’ve made all the required payments. This prevents high-income earners from paying back an unfair amount.

This approach is perfect for entrepreneurs because it’s more flexible than equity-based funding options alone. It’s also an inclusive, equitable approach that serves idea and early-stage companies better than other traditional funding options. Since it’s an Income Share Agreement, your funder only wins if you win, so they’re committed to helping you succeed and giving you the tools you need to win. 

Who’s doing this now? 

Chisos is an up-and-coming company that invests in high-potential individuals from all walks of life. Chisos designed a funding model for idea and early-stage entrepreneurs: the Convertible Income Share Agreement. To learn more about their ISA program, visit their program info page.

This concept could be a game-changer for those looking to become entrepreneurs but don’t have the upfront capital to get started. What are your thoughts? 

Buy now pay later (BNPL)   platforms that allow customers to make purchases in installments are growing in popularity in the United States and being used like never before. 

Younger generations are hopping on the trend to save money instead of using traditional credit cards with steep interest. Platforms like Afterpay, Klarna, and Affirm allow users to make big box purchases like a new computer without having to shell out the entire cost upfront. Instead, they typically let users pay in four installments over a few weeks or months. As a result, the BNPL industry is now worth $97 billion and set to only go up from there.

Some experts say younger generations are steering clear of traditional credit and debit in the wake of the financial crisis. Instead, buy Now Pay Later is becoming the solution in the retail world.

So what about education?

You may be thinking ‘Buy Now, Pay Later works great for retail, but how would it work for education?’ Turns out, it’s already working quite well. This study by AWS shows that not only is Buy Now Pay Later a popular option for Millennials and Gen Z, they are also already using this model to pay for their education.

And it makes sense doesn’t it?”

Your students are already familiar with Buy Now Pay Later for their everyday purchases.

Four easy payments of $19.99 is becoming the default choice when shopping.

With your students already paying for many of their bigger purchases with BNPL, doesn’t it make sense to give them the option to use this model to help them achieve their learning goals?

The number one thing we’ve identified as a barrier to increasing enrollment is too few payment options for students. Unfortunately, students have limited options when it comes to paying for their education. With flexible financing like BNPL, we’re looking to change the way students and schools view funding.

Our programs allow schools to control their future and help them hit enrollment goals, to also increase enrollment for schools and improve retention.

Our partners choose Meratas for a few simple reasons. They have increased enrollment, diversify their income, and scaled their programs. In addition, 87% of students polled said they wouldn’t have considered their program without a flexible financing option.

Our approach to alternative financing options puts schools and students at the center of what we do. We create tuition programs that are fair and flexible for your students and profitable for you.

Now, are you ready to bring Buy Now, Pay Later to your students?

Meratas: The All In One Tuition Solution

At Meratas, we took BNPL and repurposed it with education in mind:

Learn Now, Pay Later! 

BNPL At YOUR Program! We now offer multiple different tuition options that are highly customizable to fit the needs of any school. Quality education does not always have to be financed with traditional student loans that acquire more interest over time. Buy Now Pay Later options are the future of education! 

Your tuition needs are unique to you and your students. If you need the flexibility to build your financing, Meratas can help! Schedule a meeting with us today to learn more about how you can use Learn Now, Pay Later to achieve all your program’s goals! 

Finding the best tuition option for your program can be hard. You want one that fits both your program’s and your students’ needs. You want to find that right balance of flexibility for them while increasing enrollment for you. 

Colleges, Universities, and boot camps alike are using flexible financing to add more options to increase accessibility for students. Flexible financing also assists those who can’t access federal financial aid, especially anyone attending alternative education, like coding boot camps.

Because flexible financing increases accessibility to students, schools are able to increase enrollment and fill empty seats. Offering flexible tuition options to your students is far and away the best method to increase enrollment and create independence for students.

The Meratas platform is built in such a way that it can support custom tuition options for your schools. For example, through the platform’s ability to handle custom solutions, we were able to create the Hybrid plan which combines several elements of an ISA with more traditional financing options. We created the hybrid plan for one of our partners to help them overcome their financing obstacles.

 It started as a custom product that we built for one of our partners to overcome their financing obstacles and now we’re offering this product to all Meratas partners that need them. Our revolutionary new financing changes the way we work with schools and students alike. No longer will students be denied access to college because of their credit scores.  This tuition option is designed to provide students with the same benefits as a traditional ISA, as well as make the revenue stream to the school much more predictable. 

The Hybrid Plan incorporates all of the flexibility that your students need with the reliability that schools want. Not only that, but this plan gives you independence because you don’t need outside funding to make it work.

Giving your students more options is a win for them and a win for you. We’ve seen some programs double enrollment simply by offering a flexible tuition option to their financing.  Without the flexibility of the Meratas platform, the Hybrid plan would not have been possible. Having this kind of flexibility means more ways to finance your educational program.

Your tuition needs are unique to you and your students. If you need the flexibility to build your own financing, we can help! Schedule a meeting with us today to learn more! 

What are the most important skills that students need to prepare for the 21st Century workforce? More importantly, how can educators, boot camps, and programs help kids gain these competencies? How are universities responding to preparing their students for future employment?

We’re going to break down the top ways schools can help prepare their students for the professional world.

1. Encourage Teamwork

One of the biggest things that students today need to succeed at work is the ability to work as a team. They need to understand how to communicate, compromise and share credit so that they can be a valuable contributing member to projects. This can be taught in school by encouraging teamwork on some projects and assignments.

Students who want a position of leadership should know how to work in teams, manage projects, and meet deadlines. While students may learn these skills in the workplace, there are steps teachers can take to help prepare them for these challenges. Teachers need to dispel the idea that working together is cheating or somehow not what happens in the professional world. In many workplaces, working in teams is a requirement for success. Students must be taught how to work in teams while honoring individual accountability. Part of that will be learning how to give and receive feedback constructively. The other part is self-awareness: an ability to monitor their own progress and realize when they could use coaching or additional materials.

2. Think Towards The Future

In many ways, real-life begins at graduation for students — they begin to put their knowledge into use and manage their own finances and life plans. So schools should focus not just on whether students have learned material, but where it will take students later. Will they be a financial, career, and personal success because of what they learned? And when students ask, “Will I ever even use this in real life?” have an answer — and an example of why they will.

3. Teach Complex Thinking Skills

In the current workplace, it’s not just about getting to the right end, but getting there by the best path. This is something that can be reinforced in colleges or bootcamps by giving students context for decision-making and solving problems.

Jobs in the modern workplace require innovation, creativity, and the ability to look at a task and not only see the outcome, but also imagine different ways to achieve it.  Colleges and universities need to do a better job of teaching these skills. They need to teach students how to think, not what to think.

4. Involve more employers with your school

Adding workplace skills to academic study benefits students, but it also has advantages for universities. Being in touch with employers helps enhance the profile of a university with employers and make them more likely to recruit there. In addition, many national ranking systems use some measure of employment success in their calculations.

Because it involves the students who get involved in a live interview with a real employer, it means that many more recruiters know about the university. Again, this is bound to feed into job offers and help increase the school’s notability.

5. Offer Alternative Financing

The Student Borrower Protection Center reported that outstanding traditional private student loan debt grew 71% in the last decade, outpacing auto loans, credit card debt, and mortgage debt. For many families, the economic pinch is making it even more difficult to qualify for private financial aid.

The private student loan market is dependent on FICO scores and cosigners, so if you don’t have parents with great credit scores that are willing to cosign for your traditional private loan, you’re likely not going to get approved for a private student loan.

There are even students with 700 FICO scores (normally high enough for approval at a good interest rate) being quoted 18-19% interest rates on their loans for college or being rejected outright if they don’t have a cosigner.

In other words, amid uncertain economic times, the barrier to entry into higher education has gotten even higher. News of these trends has spread to universities. A recent survey of university presidents from Inside Higher Ed found that 90% of respondents are concerned about a long-term decline in overall future student enrollment. 

Using Income Share Agreements, we can open the doors to higher education to millions of Americans that either went to college and dropped out because of lack of availability of traditional loans, or that never went in the first place.

By utilizing ISAs, programs have seen higher enrollment, improved retention, and accelerated completion.

Income Share Agreements are making strong headway in the education finance world. Being a financing option that can withstand economic uncertainties such as a pandemic makes them a good option for students and schools alike. 

To be successful today, students need certain skills and key traits to perform well in real-world settings. Teaching students the skills they need in today’s work world in college and bootcamps is important!

Meratas

Meratas provides a full-service SaaS Platform for Schools and Skills-Training Courses to design, administer, and service custom ISA programs. We help institutions create impactful ISA programs designed to promote student accessibility and increase enrollment. 

Our programs are intended to incentivize students, schools, and capital providers to work together to promote and finance only the best educational programs that lead to more successful careers.

If you’re interested in offering an ISA option at your school or program that has been proven to increase student enrollment, there’s no better time to offer one than now! Click here to schedule a call with one of our ISA specialists and get your ISA program up and running today.

Although every effort has been made to provide complete and accurate information, Meratas Inc. makes no warranties, express or implied, or representations as to the accuracy of content contained herein. Meratas Inc

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. –  Colorado Mountain College (CMC), a federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), is proud to announce the launch of its Rural Nursing Success Fund Income Share Agreement (ISA) program in partnership with Meratas.

The new program at CMC gives nursing students the opportunity to pay for college using incentive-aligned income share agreements. With an ISA, students do not pay upfront tuition. Instead, they pay a fixed percentage of their income after graduation for a set period of time. Nurses trained by Colorado Mountain College will be able to participate in an ISA that has no interest and caps the total repayment at the amount borrowed. Income share agreements give students a chance to get a great education without the barrier of upfront costs or high student loan debt.

CMC students earning a bachelor’s degree or associate degree in nursing with a financial need are eligible to receive up to $3,000 per year through the CMC Foundation Rural Nursing Success Fund Income Share Agreement opportunity.

This program was specifically created for CMC nursing students and further provides a 25% incentive for CMC graduates to stay and work in Colorado Mountain College’s Rocky Mountain region.

CMC is one of the most affordable bachelor’s degree-granting institutions in the nation and demonstrates a continuous commitment to providing an affordable and high-quality education that helps students graduate with less student loan debt.

“We are always seeking ways to grow the pipeline of nurses in our mountain communities and give them the tools needed to succeed,” said Kristin Heath Colon, CEO of the CMC Foundation. “We believe CMC is uniquely well-positioned to recruit and educate diverse candidates in a high-need service area.  We are additionally interested in providing an example of innovative financing that could be replicated in other environments.”

“This program is combating the lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. Meratas is honored to support CMC in helping students gain access to the transformative effects of higher education,” said Meratas Founder and CEO Darius Goldman. “As a first-generation American, I recall stories of my mother immigrating to America in her early teens.  It was through continued education that she was able to assimilate and advance.  I like to think about her journey when considering the generational life-changing impact that this program will provide.”

About Colorado Mountain College

Founded in 1965, Colorado Mountain College provides a diverse range of learning opportunities at its 11 campuses across Colorado’s rural mountain resort communities, and online. Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, CMC serves over 14,000 undergraduates and community members each year offering over 125 certificates and degrees. Recognized for its commitment to accessibility, excellence and workforce training relevant to Colorado’s outdoor, tourism and knowledge-based economy, Colorado Mountain College is among the lowest-cost institutions in Colorado and has one of the most affordable bachelor’s degrees in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

About Colorado Mountain College Foundation

Founded in 1985, the CMC Foundation builds sustainable community support for the needs and strategic priorities of Colorado Mountain College and its students. The CMC Foundation is governed by an independent board of directors and has $28 million in assets under management.  Learn more: https://coloradomtn.edu/foundation/ 

About Meratas

Meratas is the leading ISA program manager, providing a full-service, turnkey, platform to design, originate, and service incentive-aligned tuition products. Universities and skills-training institutions partner with Meratas to achieve clear strategic objectives: improved retention, increased enrollment, and better outcomes tracking. With Meratas, schools can quickly and cost-efficiently launch a fully customized ISA program with best-in-class scalability and an unparalleled emphasis on provider and consumer benefits. Learn more at www.meratas.com

Excerpts below are from the original article written by Thomas Conkling and Christa Gibbs for The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The full original article can be found here.

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