Fee payment solution company Financepeer and Halp, a global tech-enabled international college admissions coaching platform, announced a strategic partnership to provide end-to-end assistance to students aspiring to study abroad.
The partnership comes against a backdrop of peaking demand for foreign education among Indian students who face information, trust deficit, and financial hurdles while seeking assistance from counsellors. The Financepeer-Halp partnership enables aspiring students to choose educational institutions of their choice provided by Halp, followed by free financing provided by Financepeer.
Matthew McLellan, co-founder and CEO, Halp noted that countries like the UK, the US, Canada and Australia are popular educational destinations. This is largely because of their faculty, comprehensive programs, post-study work environments and living standards.
"Under this partnership, Halp and Financepeer will extend their services to each other's members. From Halp, these services include end-to-end study abroad admissions counselling and soft-landing services like helping students get a bank account, phone plan, residence, and loans," he explained.
Rohit Gajbhiye, chief executive officer of Financepeer, added, "This partnership would help students get answers to all their queries in one place. We will take care of fee financing and 1:1 coaching, while Halp will help them get the desired course and college in the country of their choice. Students will be able to avail of free admission counselling and post-admission services as well, Gajbhiye added further."
Financepeer is a fee payment solution fintech that claims to cater to 3 million students giving them access to funds for their education. The education focussed start-up raised $31 million in its Series B funding round, led by QED Investors and Aavishkaar Capital in April 2022.
US-based edtech investor Ardent Ventures, DMI Sparkle Fund, 9Unicorn, LC Nueva AIF and Maxar VC also participated in the round.
In 2020, the company raised $3 million from MS Fincap, Danube, Aar Em Ventures, Angelbay Holdings, JITO Angel Network, and HEM Angels.
Using Halp, students can apply to over 15,000 programs across Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia, allowing them to pursue their education in their preferred country. "Our coaches are constantly in touch with students, helping them with recommendations on top-fit countries, schools and programs. Halp does all the work, including discovering financial support, document upload and visa application support. Students can easily track their progress from the Halp dashboard and coaches are available for daily updates".
According to a report by consulting firm Redseer on higher education abroad, the number of Indian students opting for higher education abroad grew from 440,000 in 2016 to 770,000 in 2019. It is set to grow to roughly 1.8 million by 2024. It will not be surprising if these figures continue to rise, given the post-pandemic rush to foreign universities.
With the rising aspirations of Indian students and parents, study abroad has picked up in the past few years. 2 lakh Indian students alone chose to study in the US in 2020-21, according to information shared by the US Embassy, 5.1 lakh students went to the UK, Canada and Australia as of January 2021.
