In developing countries, higher education can increase a graduate's income 3-5x. Despite this high return, 60 million of the brightest students graduate high school every year, that are unable to pay for a degree or diploma. Today, they waste their talents as subsistence farmers, street vendors and servers in the tourism industry. What if, instead of limiting these young students’ futures because of their family financial reality, we provide investors with the opportunity to back these future leaders in engineering, science, medicine, and business?
Brighter Investment has developed a scalable, tech driven business model that makes these investments possible. In 2015 Brighter Investment supported the first high potential students in Ghana, followed by a new and larger cohort every year since. The deal is: Brighter Investment pays for their higher education, and after graduation students repay their investors a percentage of their income, typically 25% for 6 years. Brighter Investment has developed a unique underwriting algorithm that makes it possible to select the brightest students with the best career prospects. As value creation is paramount here, a mentorship program is also in place to accelerate the employability of graduate students.
Out of 389 supported students, the first 93 have graduated. On average, their degrees increase graduate incomes 5X and they are 6X less likely to be unemployed. Graduates pay more taxes, grow the economy, and are more likely to educate their children. Brighter graduates are outperforming their peers and are still projected to provide investors with an attractive return despite COVID-19 (see attachment).
Once the virus recedes, when schools open up again and economies start to recover, Brighter Investment's work will be more important than ever before. The hardest hit by the economic fallout of this virus will be the people working in the informal economy. Left without an income for months and no social safety net to fall back on, the parents of Africa’s most high potential students will be even less able to afford to pay for their children’s education. Limited access to health care will unfortunately mean that a disproportionate percentage of families will be left without their main source of income forever. It is Brighter Investment's mission to ensure that these circumstances will not result in a generation of bright students unable to reach their full potential. Now more than ever, the future is bright.
*Capital raised figures include amounts raised both on and off platform.