INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The student loan crisis in the United States has left venture capitalists searching for novel approaches to financing higher education, but
can the same systems designed for helping coders in Silicon Valley get jobs at Google help underserved students in developing countries
become part of a global work force?Similar to the buzzy San Francisco startup Lambda School, Microverse is a coding school that utilizes
ISAs, or Income Share Agreements, as a means of allowing students to learn now and pay later with a fixed percentage of their future salary
courting students in developing countries
The startup currently has students in 96 countries, with Mexico, Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon and India among their most represented,
CEO Ariel Camus tells A Technology News Room.The pitch of bringing the ISA model worldwide has attracted investor interest
The startup tells A Technology News Room it has just closed $3.2 million in seed funding from venture capitalists including General
Catalyst and Y Combinator.Lambda School and its ilk have excited plenty of investors
There has also been plenty of scrutiny and some questions on whether quickly scaling to venture-sized returns or building revenue by selling
off securitized ISAs ends up pushing these startups toward cutting corners.Microverse, for its part, is already built quite lean
The program has no full-time instructors
The entire curriculum is a self-guided English-only lesson plan that relies on students that are just months ahead in the program serving as
than just $1,000 per month, though there is no cap on time, so students continue payments until they have repaid $15,000 in full
expire, so if you ever enter a job adjacent to your area of study, you are on the hook for repayments
repaying this ISA, they are, again, on the hook for $15,000
Charging such a hefty fee for an online course without full-time instructors geared toward students in developing countries could be
controversial for a venture-backed startup, but it will also put a heavy burden on the school to keep their students satisfied and help them
