Discussing ISA’s with Mariano Kostelec.

Two and a half years ago, when I shared the idea of wanting to invest in students to get a stake in their future earnings, my friends and mentors laughed hard. But that didn’t last for long. And as we can see, ISA’s are slowly becoming mainstream. It was great to chat with Mariano an entrepreneur, optimist and the founder of studentfinance.com

Key insights:

1. ISA’s are the future, wherein we will see Institutions charging nothing upfront but ‘betting’ on the employability of their students

2. More regulation is better for investor confidence and for the initial push

3. Students will care more about ROI than ever and programs that fail on that metric will crash

4. A lot of business models are being tested but initial payoff is crucial to prove that this is viable

5. It is important that we act as partners for students and take the pressure off their shoulders. This’ll boost performance as well as bridge the ‘skill gap’ if we can help them identify the right courses

This is no doubt uncharted territory for most and the challenges are immense, but it is good to see such optimism from one of the early movers in Europe.

#ISA #studentdebt #transformingeducation

P.S Thanks Joe and IE Business School for these amazing connections.