With tuition and the overall cost of living on the rise, many students are searching for new ways to make some extra money. GradeFund.com is a website that allows for students to get their hands on some cash. The only catch: get good grades. “Our goal is to be the most important resource for students across the world to get a great education,” GradeFund’s mission statement said on its website. “We want students to have a friend who works tirelessly to help make a great education more affordable and more accessible.” Launched in early November by brothers Michael and Matthew Kopko, the site enables students to make profiles where they can upload their grades, send in transcripts and invite friends, family or even strangers to sponsor them. Sponsors can support a student or a specific cause and decide how much each grade is worth for as low as five dollars. Corporations can also sponsor students.
According to the GradeFund team, one of the biggest sponsorships is for pre-veterinarian students, from ZooToo.com. ZooToo is a networking site for pet lovers.
By just making a profile students can earn money. For each piece of information a student fills out they make ten cents, which becomes their seed fund. The site does, however, require students to earn at least $100 before they are issued checks. In addition there is a 5 percent transaction fee, which is to “cover our own costs and to offset credit card fees charged to us,” the web site said.
“The website does seem to be a great idea,” Justin Brunot said, a student at Penn State who joined GradeFund a few weeks ago after seeing it advertised in an e-mail from the alcohol education program he was required to take. He said he has yet had the time to find sponsors but does plan on doing so in the future.
By changing Facebook profile pictures to a picture provided by GradeFund, members and fans on Facebook were eligible for 10,000 pennies giveaway as part of GradeFund’s January promotion advertised on their Facebook fan page.
“I basically just joined in time to take part in the 10,000 pennies contest GradeFund held on Facebook and happened to be the lucky one to win it,” continued Brunot.
The site’s popularity is constantly on the rise due to resources like Facebook. As of Monday, Feb. 2, 13,968 students and 510 sponsors were registered on the web site, according to the GradeFund team. The following day the website’s ticker reported over 14,000 students signed up.
As the site continues to grow there are a few things that GradeFund plans to do. According to the site, they are working on a search engine that allows students to search for each other as a way to further ones earnings. They also plan on having a job platform that will help continue ones success after they graduate from college.
