Welcome to Ed Tech insiders. In this podcast we talk to educators and educational technology investors, thought leaders, founders and operators about the most interesting and exciting trends in the field. I'm your host, Alex Sarlin, an educational technology veteran with over a decade of work at leading edtech companies. Today on Ed Tech insiders, we talked to David Helene, the founder of Airbiquity. David has worked in the field of college financing for years. Previous to equity.
He was a co founder of unify scholars and nonprofit provider of College Financial Planning education for low income high school students. He also worked at the clearing house, a payments provider that works with commercial banks, where he quickly became one of the youngest vice presidents in corporate history. David was a 2020 Forbes 30 under 30 honoree for social impact, and is a graduate of Yale University. Equity is an emergency financial assistance platform for college
students. It provides emergency cash grants on behalf of the Dallas County Community College District, and is partnered with 13 collegiate institutions in six states in the third quarter of 2021. Colleges distributed $15 million in emergency aid through the equity platform. David Alene Welcome to EdTech insiders.
Thanks, Alex. It's great to be here.
You were an economics major and your career background is in finance and payments. Tell us how you got interested in educational finance in edtech?
Yeah, appreciate the question. When I was studying econ, in college, I was focused particularly on financial crisis. So my first job after college was at the intersection studying sort of post crisis regulatory reform and payments. And I was working for an interesting organization that conducted advocacy on behalf of the largest banks in
the country. And a couple months into that I realized that rather than effectively lobbying for institutions that were largely responsible for the financial crisis, I wanted to be helping communities that had historically been disenfranchised by the very institutions that I was
representing. So I was, you know, looking at the housing market pre crisis and saw similarities with how the student debt market was growing, and wanted to think through interventions that might be able to help at both a micro and
macro level. So I started a nonprofit organization that was focused on the intersection of financial empowerment and college success for students wanting to think through an experiential intervention that would actually be relatable to a demographic that, unfortunately, is what are the cash foreign
credit for? So the work I was doing at unify scholars was sort of focused on helping students try to avoid some of the issues that the students we serve equity are dealing with, which is acutely housing insecurity and food insecurity, among other
basic needs challenges. And it was the work that I did at unify scholars for many years that helped me realize that these problems are so vast and so structural, that no amount of planning can really help students avoid the unfortunate reality that many are
experiencing in college. So the approach that we've taken equity is focused on streamlining access to the safety net, understanding that without massive structural reform, this will become an inevitable need for many students that are experiencing their college, their college going education.
Yeah, you know, many of the guests we've had on this podcast are usually or often delivering educational tech programs that are really about delivering content or delivering teaching or tutoring. But equity is an edtech company that that goes right to the heart of one of the biggest issues in higher education, as you mentioned, which is the cost and the unpredictability of being able to afford a college
education. Sara Goldrick. Rob, the author of one of the top books about spiraling education costs is your chief strategy officer. And, you know, in doing research for this episode, it's been really, you know, clear that the cost of higher education has outpaced inflation for many years. Student debt is is enormous and has surpassed credit card debt as the second largest source of debt in the United States. You've been looking at this, obviously for many years through unify and
equity. Do you have a theory and I'd love to hear your talk about why higher education is so expensive, and is creates this kind of desperate situation for so many students?
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, there are a lot of inputs that go into why the raw cost of college particularly tuition and surrounding payments have gone up over the past 30 years. You know, there are certainly variables related to federal policy and how students can access financial aid, as well as just competition among its tuitions, the cost of administration, the cost of teaching the cost of capital expenses. And of course, the thing that we're focused on it
equity is the cost of living. So I think one of the key insights that we've seen is that the Pell Grant today covers about 30% of tuition, as opposed to 40 years ago when it covered nearly the entire stack of college costs.
As we're looking at things like housing, I think right now we're seeing inflation be a material issue for not just students, but Americans across the country as they're dealing with the impact of inflation on on food and rent, we're seeing that these basic costs of living are actually material expenses related to what students need to cover with regards to college. I think one of the interesting facts that many don't know is that 87% of students who go to college do not live on campus.
Right, that means that many students are dealing with the exact same cost of living stack that the rest of us are, but they also have to go to school and cover tuition on top of that. So the Pell Grant, as I mentioned, used to cover about the entirety of the tuition
stack back in the 1960s. Today, it covers about 32%, as we think about that, students not only have to contend with covering a disproportionate cost of tuition, but we've seen the cost of living around housing and other basic needs skyrocket over the last few decades, while wages have not increased, median income has not increased. So what is available to American households to cover the cost of college has not increased in yet students are on the hook for a much larger cost with far fewer
resources to cover. And this has been borne out in the fact and just a recent survey from last week that found that 42% of students who drop out cite financial reasons. And these financial reasons are the exact day to day expenses that the rest of us are on the hook for understanding that 87% of college students actually live off campus, meaning they are likely covering rent in some
form. So as we take a look at how we can support students at equity, we want to make sure that they can, they can cover these day to day expenses that derail the educational journeys for about 3 million students a year. And that's the lens through which we look as we think about how can we deploy critical cash infusions to students to cover the basic needs expenses that we know are leading to them dropping out, it's a
really insightful way to approach reducing dropout rates, supporting students at their moment of highest need, I really admire it. Let's talk about that that 87% statistic that you just need, because I think that is a really eye opening statistic for a lot of those who aren't, you know, who are looking at higher education with the outside and may think of, you know, the traditional student in the traditional, you know, dorm living and quiet and you know,
leafy brick buildings. That scenario of higher education has really changed a lot in the last few decades. And I think that 87% stat that 87% of students aren't living on campus, so they have to provide their own housing costs, on top of tuition is one of the ways in which Higher Ed has has really changed. I'd love to hear a little bit more, you know, we're
here at the end of 2021. With high inflation, as you mentioned, with where costs for everyone are starting to rise, and I'm sure those are hitting college students doubly hard, because they also have to provide for themselves while spending a lot of their time studying. Tell us a little bit about what that sort of emergency funding looks like? What are the biggest sources of economic stress for students?
And how can we, as a tech community sort of understand better what financial stress they're under?
Yeah, I appreciate that question. I mean, even before the pandemic, the two biggest acute issue areas that students were struggling with were access to safe and stable shelter and food insecurity. So even before the pandemic, about 50% of college students were suffering from either food or housing insecurity. Wow, we ran an analysis for you know, we've taken in about 100,000 applications for emergency aid
in the past seven months. And we've seen that over that time, actually, the same trends continue to persist, about 56% of students indicate experiencing housing insecurity. 21%, unfortunately, indicate experiencing some form of homelessness, and about 45% of students have indicated struggling with food insecurity.
One of the really interesting things from the data is that, you know, you mentioned a picture of college as sort of a, you know, a lot of these dormitories, the ivy and you know, draped over buildings, but the reality is about, you know, 70 plus percent of students either go to community college or open enrollment for your institutions, right, so that
image is far and away. In the minority college going experience, for those that go to college, in fact, nearly 50% of students are either over the age of 25, or are fallen to the quote unquote, non traditional learning identity. So those that are going to college is materially shifting with regards to demographics, the fastest growing racial demographics of college going individuals is
black and white next. So it is really important that we as an as, as the media, as general population, understand who is actually going to college, because we need to think through what are the right policy instruments to make sure that
these students complete. And one of the interesting things in our data that we've seen since April is that, whereas in April 30%, of students that applied for emergency aid indicated a need for child care, that number declined to 15% in October, and we know that things like the Earned Income Tax Credit, and payments for child care has increased in the wake of the American rescue plan, which suggests from my vantage point that the types of policies that we implement will have a
material impact and whether or not students will be successful in the future.
You say that equity is a core an anti poverty company, what does that mean to you, given what you are saying about all the different financial stresses and policies that may affect higher education students lives?
I think at the heart of it, it's a knowledge meant of the structural issues that are impediments to college completion. And what we are seeing from our vantage point is that by and large, these impediments are financial in nature, and they stem from either intergenerational wealth
gaps or true poverty. So if equity is an organization actually wants to get to the heart of college completion, if we want to make sure that we can reverse these intergenerational wealth gaps, these cycles of poverty, we first and foremost need to understand the levers that will you know, at the root of the issue transform the types of outcomes that we're seeing.
And that is not just building a widget, though, I think we have an amazing quote unquote, widget that is helping narrow equity gaps and completion and ensure that students can receive cash assistance 25 hours after they
apply. But we have to understand the actual structural factors at play so that the practice that we are demonstrating in the field that we are partnering with institutions around can be informative to broader structural policy reform, to make sure that students aren't dealing with these types of acute issues in the first place.
So that is sort of what we mean when we think of ourselves as antipoverty company, our mandate is not just to transform, a micro outcome for a student, it is to transform the macro structures of our society to make sure that emergency aid would be needed less in the future. So that is sort of how we think about our work. As we you know, we set out to change what's going on in the field of higher education.
That's really ambitious, and a very inspiring goal. You mentioned working with universities, and one of the aspects of equity that is particularly interesting, and I'd like to dive into is that you offer a white labeled service so that universities can offer this type of emergency funding under their own brands and names, and not necessarily under the equity brand. That's very unusual, and very interesting model. How do your university partners and clients
react to that? And tell us a little bit more about that model?
Yeah, happy to share it. So you know, I think first and foremost, it's important understand that the source of funding is the institutions themselves. So you know, even before the pandemic, about 80% of institutions had an emergency aid program, in the wake of the pandemic, we've started seeing a $32 billion infusion of federal emergency aid into the system. So these dollars are institutional dollars, and students expect that these dollars will flow
from the institution. So our ability to take on the identity of our partners is critical, because at the heart of this is an issue of trust. You know, students, I wouldn't say they universally trust their institutions, but they certainly trust their institutions more than a third party that they haven't interacted with before. And quite literally, this is the
promise of free money, right. So as we think about the user experience, we need to engender the idea to the student that this is a safe way to receive money that they're entitled to and isn't a quote unquote, scam. So I think the expectation is to make sure that this is a white labeled experience and the institutions are of course, entirely supportive of that structure.
It says a lot that students who are experiencing poverty or are experiencing homelessness, might expect an institution a third party, you know, a new institution coming to them to be scamming them. I think that is probably a very frequent experience for people who need
that kind of aid. So it makes a lot of sense that they're the money is better legitimately coming from and appears to be coming from the universities themselves the college's rather than a third party that they don't know about and haven't yet, you know, researched.
Now, I think it speaks to two things, Alex, to your point. I mean, first and foremost, it speaks to the fact that the communities that we work with it equity have historically had difficult relationships with financial institutions that have traditionally preyed on them, right, the relationship has not been one that's deserving of trust, because often, it results in material hardships to the communities that by and large,
we're certainly in equity. So I think that's something that we need to be mindful of is the historical experience of the communities that we've been serving and how they've interacted with financial institutions in the past, I don't think that they should be trustful of third parties when it comes to financial services.
The other, of course, is a shift in the technological landscape and the ease with which one can carry out a scam in this day and age, which I think has led to, you know, a much savvier generation of folks handling technology to be wary of third party tech solutions, because they could be scams, we're seeing a proliferation of those whether it's Robo calling, whether it's text message fishing, we are seeing a lot
more of that. And we have to be very mindful in the design of our user experience to ensure that we can win and earn the trust of the students that we're serving. So that certainly are is a top of mind consideration, as we think about interacting with both students and institutions.
You mentioned that the universities already have emergency aid funds available. And I think they're, you know, one of the really compelling value propositions of equity for somebody on the outside of it is that clearly something is going wrong if universities have funds available for emergency for students. But in a normal world, students are still dropping out of school because of emergency needs such as housing insecurity, homelessness, food
insecurity. So there's some mismatch happening there where the schools have funds, but the students aren't aware that they have access to these funds. And it feels like equity is stepping in and making that and sort of working as an arbiter between those two, those two groups as a platform as a widget, as you call it. Talk to me a little bit about why that problem exists.
Why if you're a community college student, or you know a student at a non selective university, does the student not know that if they can't make next month rent, the university may actually be able to support them? Why is that? Such an unknown? unknown fact? If I've never heard of it before?
Yeah, it's a good question. And I'd say they're sort of they're the two vectors of answer to that at a micro level, for the past sort of 10 years in the in lieu of policies that are funding higher education, higher education institutions themselves have been reengineering themselves as social services organizations.
So we've seen particularly community colleges at the forefront, but certainly for your institutions as well are starting to actually bring onto their campuses, things like food, pantries, things like child care centers, things like, you know, food scholarships to try to address these issues. But colleges are not meant to be social services organizations, and they are very bureaucratic siloed entities, some of which don't trust students,
unfortunately. And they are not well designed to make sure that these programs can perform any fast, student centered and equitable way. So often, you see structures for these programs where they have to be coordinated across a variety of different departments, including including student affairs, student services, advancement, financial aid, where you have a lot of folks who can say no, and very few folks who can say yes to what the overarching designs of these programs should look
like. And because they often have to move across departments, and they are leveraging, you know, existing staff who already overburdened and takes a long time for these programs to move. Right. So the status quo today that takes about two weeks for an institution to process and application end to end, there is a culture and rightfully so within financial aid to be often compliance first students
second, right. And when you're a student that needs flexible funding today, that type of culture does not beget itself to an experience that will yield the best student outcomes. So that is sort of a cultural and structural issue for why these
programs don't perform. They often are using shortcuts that are not centering equity, but again, are centering centering the minimization of administrative burden understanding that these are overworked professionals, right, who are doing, you know three different jobs on top of having to review student applications to process financial or emergency aid. So it makes sense that these programs perform as they do given the resources that
are available. That said, another issue here is that the status quo is that even Though there may be dollars on campus, the supply of funds certainly does not meet the demand of need. And as we think about the policy environment and what needs to happen, states and ultimately the federal government needs to make sure that there is a steady state of emergency that can actually meet the scope of the structural poverty that we're seeing on
college campuses. So we do see a lot of institutions try to hoard these funds, because they're rationing them, they don't want them to run out because they have so few dollars. Now, of course, the flip side of that is that if you're rushing them, then you're not spending them on the students who need it. So it is a nefarious problem there.
And it gets to the heart of the fact that over the next 12 months, as we see a ton of money still in the system, institutions need to be rigorously evaluating not only the efficacy of these programs to advocate for future dollars from the from state and federal government, but also to make sure that they are evaluating the scope of the need, so that they can justify why they need so much money in the first
place. So we haven't seen a tremendous effort from institutions over the last year to evaluate efficacy, which we think is a tremendous missed opportunity. And a product of the great resignation coupled with having to do a ton more work than institutions are used
to doing. I think there was an article last week that indicated that for that higher education saw a four percentage point decline in staffing, where a lot of that was in the financial aid function, which just happens to be the function that's disproportionately responsible
for emergency aid. So you know, as we look to the future, we're keeping our fingers crossed that institutions will take a less myopic approach to these programs to make sure that there are more funds in the future to perform well, for students.
It's really, it's really fascinating. It's a very complex system that has to be sort of read thought, in a new context. You know, this may be a little bit of an oddball question, but I am curious about your reaction to it. You know, when you talk about higher education institutions serving as social services organizations, and sort of having to bend the definition of themselves, and provide childcare provide food pantries, it reminds me a little bit of what has happened in K 12.
Schools, especially in high poverty areas where schools offer obviously, you know, free and reduced lunch has been around for a long time, but also additional services and sort of wraparound services for social work and all sorts of services for families and students in poverty and who and where that poverty is actually limiting their ability to succeed in
school. And it feels like that process is now starting to make its way into higher ed and higher ed is is even maybe more unprepared to adapt to a world in which so many of its students are in dire poverty. I mean, when you talk about 20%, homelessness of the of your applicants, that's, you know, I think very few people who go into higher ed realize they may be supporting homeless students,
you know, often. So I'm curious if there if you see any parallels between policies that have supported K 12 schools, ability to support, you know, non educational outcomes, but the core needs, and what is now happening in higher ed?
Yeah, I think that's a tremendously interesting comparison. And I do see material similarities on the policy side between K 12. and higher ed. I mean, one of the interesting things I live in New York, one of the movements that had grown here in the K 12 system was sort of the community school model. And it didn't take off as much as I would have
liked. But it is grounded in exactly what you're describing, right, which is to think about the school as the locus of a family and to make sure that their broader wraparound supports not just to support the the student, but also to support parents, right. So putting legal services or other types of supports just adjacent to the school to make sure that there's a more holistic approach to
poverty. That is sort of the structural approach that I think many higher education leaders are trying to implement on their campus, but they don't have a lot of policy driven support at the moment. But as I think about you mentioned free and reduced lunch, you know, that did not
come out of the gate. Right. The first thing that you had was you made public school free, right, that is the first thing and that is the stepping stone to broader policy reforms that incrementally add things in the way are on additional policy instruments like free and reduced lunch. So the free community college proposal that unfortunately did not make its way through Congress this year.
From my vantage point, you know, that is step one in a multi step process where you start to layer on additional wraparound supports, right? You make public education, public good the way that you did with you know, public K 12. And then you start to add the additional anti poverty focus policies, on top of that, that are geared toward
completion. I will say that the build back better bill does have a proposal to implement a $500 million college completion fund, which is sort of a generalist approach to what you're describing, which is, you know, to allow institutions additional dollars to implement, quote, unquote, evidence based solutions that are targeting student completion, which would include emergency aid. I think I've read that that is meant to be a down payment on future
policy. But that is the exact type of wraparound type funding that we're going to need to see in the future. Both the state and federal level to again, to your point, Alex targets some of the wraparound issues that students are experiencing that inhibit completion. Yeah. You mentioned
the community schooling model. And that's exactly what I was thinking about that sort of like the Harlem Children's Zone model from from and, you know, another program that that caught my attention, and I think it's been they've been trying to replicate it for a while. I'm curious about your thoughts about this, because it seems parallel to to some of the funding issues is the the ASAP program that the
CUNY system Yeah. Which, which, if I remember correctly, it basically offered, you know, transportation costs and coaching and sort of services that were not traditionally thought of as under the purview of of a college but had enormous impact on college completion. So much so that other schools around the country started to to try it. I'm curious if that has influenced your thinking at all?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, ASAP is a transformative model, and certainly take pride in our city university system here in New York are leading the way there. But to your point, it's a combination of both financial and academic supports. So addressing basic needs issues, like providing students free Metro cards to support transportation, given that that is the primary mode of transportation for college students here in the city, as well as additional financial support for books plus coaching
and academic support. And to your point, the impacts of that program and transformational and have been replicated in other places, I know Ohio started to take on some work around ASAP. ASAP is a tremendous program and would love to see it in every, you know, institution across the country, it is also unbelievably
expensive, right? And, you know, it becomes one of those things where even though the benefits certainly outweigh the costs, when you think about completion rates, when you think about tax revenue that comes back into the local economy from folks who are then winning jobs, unfortunately, our public policy rarely, rarely is implemented in such a, you know, take the long view type way, you know, again, ASAP is something that every
institution should have. But I am fearful that it is unfortunate going to price many institutions out from what its cost structure is and trying to think through some of these additional interventions that are a little bit more cost effective, like emergency aid, may be slightly more practical from a public policy standpoint, not to say that it's more
impactful. But, you know, ASAP, I believe the cost was something like $18,000 of student, which, wow, it is something that has been proven empirically to be far outweighed in benefit as students complete. But I do think that's the upfront cost, which makes it tougher from an initial public policy standpoint.
And that makes a lot of sense. I have one more question about how equity works with universities that when you approach universities, do you feel like they're already aware of the extent of the emergency aid needs and the funding problems? Are they already struggling with this issue and excited that you can walk in with a with a clear solution? Or do you have to sort of inform and alert them to the need in the first place, and that there are so many students struggling?
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, as I mentioned, I think most institutions identify this as a tremendous pain point. I think where you know, where institutions quite candidly may have some concerns is that they are scared to pay for anything. That's a general theme institutions are typically underfunded, right. And as a result, every dollar matters.
And it's tough to see institutions make, again, longitudinally focused investment in infrastructure that will benefit them and yield an ROI that will bring more revenue into the organization in the next year. Right. That is just not a framework within which institutions have the luxury of thinking they can only focus on this fiscal year. So you know, I think institutions identify the problem. I think it gets back to a broader theme of how are we financing higher
education. And if I point to other areas, you know, other areas of public policy acknowledge that to do work, well, you have to fund some of the infrastructure around it. Right. So if you look at emergency rental assistance, and I will not argue that that's been done well, but part of the reason it has not been done well is because cities and counties across the country have literally had to build infrastructure from scratch.
arch, you know, on a dime. But there is a 10% administrative carve out for those funds so that cities can actually make intentional investment in making sure that their programs perform well. You want to know why financial aid is a universally hated department among students. The Pell grant allows for I believe, it's either five cents or $5. But regardless, that's against this $6,000 award. So when you think about the administrative allowance against the Pell Grant, it's pretty much
nothing. So you're giving the institution the money to process but you're not giving them any resources to allow them to process it? Well, we're in a way that benefits students, it is the same thing with the hurt allocation of emergency aid. Right, these institutions have been given a tremendous opportunity, but also from their vantage point, a real burden that they have to, you know, push out $32 billion into the system, that they don't have the infrastructural capacity to
move. And that is typically where we see the biggest friction points with institutions is that, you know, because there hasn't been a commitment for future policy streams, institutions are not looking at this necessarily as an infrastructure investment, but as sort of a box that they need to check in the short term, where they won't have that much money to move in the future. Most people we talk to are unbelievably excited about the
solution. They're excited about how we center equity, they're excited about the fact that we can point to statistically significant results that show that students we funded have graduated at twice the rate is those not funded? Right, we've shown that this is impactful. This is transformative for students in institutions from a revenue standpoint, but the question is, will there be a lot of more money to move in the
future or not? And this becomes a policy question that, you know, the next 12 months for us will be really important as a industry of practice to demonstrate how much this money is needed, and how transformational it can be for students to justify future investments down the road.
That transformation and especially that statistic, you just named where giving emergency aid can double the likelihood of students graduating feels incredibly compelling. And I want to dig in to a particular pain point among students that, which is that you know, student debt is one of many economic issues in the United States that's highly correlated with
race. African American students have a 46% six year graduation rate, meaning they're more likely to not complete than to complete school and African American male students have only a 40% graduation rate. Many, many students of color are pursuing a degree along with full time work requirements and family obligations. So there's a lot of additional constraints. And I wanted to ask about how equity thinks about its own role in reducing the economic disparity for students of color particularly?
Yeah, I really appreciate that question. And this is an explicit focus of the organization. So we talked about how equity is an anti poverty company, we were also explicitly an anti racist company, and it is one of our actually explicit core values. And to exactly the heart of your question. As you look at the experience of basic needs security among college students is an experience that is disproportionately borne by black, indigenous and Latinx
students. So Indigenous students actually have the highest rate of basic needs insecurity, their highest 60 percentage, 60% of Indigenous students are experiencing housing insecurity. But black students in particular experience basic needs challenges with about, I believe, a 15 percentage point difference relative to white students to justice, student debt is disproportionately borne by black students, so is the day to day financial burden that is disproportionately causing
students to drop out. So as we think about the evaluation of our work, we're also looking not just about the absolute performance of what we're doing, but also about ensuring that for racial equity standpoint, we are disproportionately serving students of color relative to other students, because we understand that those students disproportionately bear the
brunt of this problem. So we are in the process of digging deep into the data that our partners are sharing with us on the racial identities of students to ensure that we are living up to the promise that we're making. We do have some early data from our partners in California that indicate that we are narrowing equity gaps and how they've been awarding students, which is exactly the intent of the
technology. But this is core to who we are in core to what we're trying to accomplish as we continue to grow in the space.
That's fantastic. And yeah, it definitely comes across very clearly looking at equities, values and mission statement, how dedicated it is to anti racism and to really closing gaps that we see that are persistent in in American education and higher education in particular. I just wanted to have one more question. Because equity is such a fascinating
model. And I think we spend a lot of this conversation talking about macro economic issues, economic education policy, that it's it's incredibly interesting, but I want to understand a little bit on the ground of the experience of a student working with the equity
platform. So can you just maybe walk through, you know, a day in the life of a higher education student and how they would access equity, what it would do for them, you mentioned a sort of 25 hour turnaround, give us just a little slice of life so we can see it from a student's perspective.
Yeah, absolutely. So technology has been built very intentionally, we take what we call an equity centered design approach, which is to effectively co build with the communities that we're trying to serve. As we thought about the status quo. Historically, a lot of institutions are either using data that can induce bias and how decisions are made. Right.
So you want to talk about the racial implications of this, a lot of institutions we've seen have either use an application process that is not grounded in basic needs, challenges that students are experiencing, which again, can overlord white students, or is using Pell data, right, using FAFSA data, and that inherently is not itself a terrible thing. But if that is the only condition or criteria that you are using, that
inherently is stale. Most, you know, FAFSA data uses what's called prior prior, which means that you're looking at two year old data in the wake of a pandemic, which may not be very indicative. FAFSA also discount some of the burden that black students are dealing with because it is not measuring debt, it is just measuring assets. And we know as you mentioned, that black families disproportionately carry debt relative to white families. And it also explicitly omits non
title for students. Right, so undocumented students, DACA students seeking asylum international students, etc. The equity product, in contrast, is using application that is screening explicitly and only for acute basic needs challenges. So we are asking questions that get to the heart of the very experiences that we know are disproportionately borne by students of color. But we do it in such a way that there is skip logic in the
application. So a student can either go online and use a web app experience or download a native mobile app, which allows them to complete an application and on average, less than seven minutes, we do not ask about race, we do not ask any superfluous questions, because we're asking only about the relevant conditions that they are experiencing based on what they're indicating in the application. Once they hit submit, they are typically receiving a response on the status of their application in
18 hours. And then they are claiming funds with money going into their account in 25 hours where they can either select an ACH transaction where they can enter their bank information and actually initiate a transaction on the spot. Or they can choose a prepaid card where they're mailed funds. And that does take a little bit longer. But that is typically the experience communication around awareness of the equity product is driven
by the institution itself. So again, getting back to the trust issue, the correspondences coming from their institution, making them aware that they can sign in or log into the equity, the white label that we experience and apply for emergency aid very quickly. But the response is coming directly from us in the app, and by email, letting them know the status of their application in less than a day so that they can claim in less than 25 hours.
Wow. And how did they discover the equity platform? Do they usually get to it through the school's intro web site?
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, there are a lot of different channels that institutions use can be email or text message to your point si s systems, where they are making students aware that the equity or that emergency aid, I should even say equity, that emergency
aid is available to them. So we work closely as a consultative partner to our institutions to make sure that the correspondence is drafted in a way that will yield outcomes that are consistent with the definition of success, as shared by the institution. And from that point, once the student receives the correspondence, it's quite easy for them to sign up, apply and receive funding in a day.
That's fantastic. So you're so you're making the students aware that the funding exists, that asking questions specifically around basic needs that try to circumvent some of the biases implicit in FAFSA data and ask very specifically about current needs. And then a very rapid turnaround that leverages, you know, bank transfers or prepaid cards and gets students the aid they need as fast as possible.
It sounds incredibly, I would imagine that students are blown away by that experience and are so thankful to be able to avoid an emergency catastrophe because of the system.
Yeah, I mean, to your point over 90% of students that we've worked with has indicated a positive experience. So that's that is heartening and creating an end to end seamless experience. where it's all in one place. It's not fragmented, students are not getting mixed communication. They're not having to get pointed to different departments makes it quite a bit easier and much more streamlined for students, particularly in a moment of crisis when we know that stress is the highest. Yeah,
absolutely fascinating. So I think we're, we've covered a lot of ground and I feel very edified by this conversation I've learned more about about student student debt and emergency need than than I than I've ever ever known
before. I wanted to dig in a little bit, just an ask about the final questions for our podcast, which is, you know, you obviously pay an enormous amount of attention to policy to what is happening in the education landscape, what is one of the most interesting or exciting trends that you have seen happening recently, something that has just caught your eye? That seems like the seed of something that may grow to something meaningful in your world?
Why do you think we've hit an inflection point where there's been an acknowledgment of the chasm of structural deficit and a need to fill that with more enlightened policy? I think that the policy instruments that we are increasingly investing in show a trust in citizenry, right, which is in direct cash transfers in a variety of different forms. And I do think that that will
continue. So I'm cautiously optimistic that in the future, there will be more resources for students across a variety of different avenues, which I'm cautiously excited for, but it will require a lot of work to get from the one yard line into the end zone. So it doesn't mean that no one can get complacent that folks need to continue to advocate to push the importance of these programs to prove it,
right. The proof, of course, is ultimately in the pudding and in advocacy data, but things like the college completion fund things like the broad ethos of the build back better bill in a lot of public policy conversations at the state level that indicate increased investments in a variety of public benefit programs for students inclusive emergency aid, all of these things indicate that whereas once upon a time, folks might make an offhanded joke about oh, yeah, college students can just eat
ramen. Right? I think folks now know that this is not a joke. This is a real issue. This is an issue that affects the future viability of our economy and our ability to produce folks who are contributing to the labor market. And it's important that, you know, I think that we will see the types of investments that we need moving forward that also centered importance of equity in those policies. So that's a broader structural trend that I'm excited about.
I'm concerned about this, at the same time, higher education institutions not receiving the state investment that they need across a variety of other areas and turn and staff write fewer personnel to be handling very difficult student issues. So it will mean that technology will
have a greater role to play. And it's important that the leaders of those entities are up for the task, and that they understand, yes, the promise of technology, but also the pitfalls and are very intentional in designing those technology solutions to make sure that they are doing good, not harm.
That's a great answer. So I hear, you know, more trust in the ability to provide aid to people directly stemming from some of the pandemic policies as well as the nascent, you know, free community college movement, and others, combined with the great resignation and the sort of lack of both financial and staff support in higher ed, which may more room for technological solutions to be able to dispense that type of aid. If I'm synthesizing that even close to correctly, it's really interesting.
Yeah, I think that's right. It's not just disbursement of aid. But I think technology solutions are going to have a broader role to play across the board. Yeah. So it is going to be it's an exciting time for edtech. But it also means is a large responsibility for the industry to step up and do good not harm.
Yeah. So we usually end with asking about a book or blog to help somebody who's just breaking into edtech. But with it because you're such an expert in this particular field. I'm curious if you could recommend a book blog, a Twitter feed that would help somebody better understand this the core inequality issues and economic issues in education if they wanted to learn more about the type of work that you do, where would you propose that they find resources?
Well, if you think I sound remotely like an expert, I owe most of that to my colleagues, Eric Holder grab who has helped me understand the vast and critical structural forces of plays. So I would direct folks to read paying the price to better understand the financial realities of that students are dealing with in the college affordability landscape, I think you cannot introduce solutions that will help students without understanding those key concepts. So that would be the place I would start
is with literature. Our Chief Strategy Officer shareholder grab, but for technologists who are trying to build meaningful solutions, I'd also direct them to automating inequality by Virginia Eubanks that speaks to the unintended consequences and harm that solutions can do when they are not intentionally designed and do not understand the communities that they are dealing with, or the structural realities and sort of limitations that technology can offer based on the policy
environment. So those are two pieces of literature that I certainly would direct any budding edtech technologist to read if they want to enter the space,
paying the price by Sara Goldrick Rab RAB and automating inequality by Virginia Eubanks. That's right. And we will put those, as always in the show notes, if you want to find those books directly. Thank you so much, David Lee, this has been a truly truly truly interesting conversation. And a lot of this will stay with
me for a long time. I think it's changing my I don't, I don't fall prey to the totally rose colored vision of college students as always being you know, financially secure and very, very happy and eating in dining halls every day anymore. But even with that disillusion, I had not realized that, you know, the percentage of students who are homeless experiencing basic needs insecurity is really eye opening. And I think I imagine many of our listeners
will feel the same way. So what you're doing with equity is really highly needed. And it's extremely exciting sub genre of edtech where it's supporting students through their financial lens. So thank you so much.
Thank you, Alex. Appreciate the conversation.
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