Cover image via bestapplyGetting into college is a huge milestone. Your parents worry about it, you worry about it. However, financing your education could be one of your family's biggest financial commitments.
Image via The Malay Mail
In fact, did you know Malaysia has been ranked 5th most expensive country to get a tertiary education in relation to household income?
A survey found that parents spend **55% of their salary** to fund a child through university or college, making Malaysia the 5th most expensive country in the world to get a tertiary degree.
With that problem in mind, Skolafund, a local startup has came up with the idea of financing students through crowdfunding
Image via SkolaFund
The idea to set up Skolafund came when co-founder Syakir Hashim checked out his university's unofficial Facebook page and stumbled upon many students sharing about their financial struggles
Image via Sphplugandplay
The startup first went live in April 2015 and has gained much traction. In just 4 short months, Skolafund In just 4 shorts months, the startup has helped 6 students raised over RM25,000!
Image via Skolafund
So, how does Skolafund work? It's pretty simple, really!
Image via Skolafund
Interested students would have to run a crowdfunding campaign to fund their educational endeavors. They are responsible for writing their own pitch and promoting their campaigns, thereby giving the "campaigner" full ownership and responsibility for their success. **The campaign will run for a total of 30 days on the site with a target funding amount.**
Aside from seeding on their Twitter and Facebook pages, Skolafund will also email and approach its user base to help seed and bring exposure to the campaign.
Sponsors could look through each campaign listed on the site for more details such as education history and target funding amount
Image via Skolafund
**All campaigns will be verified by the student's university or college to assure sponsors.** There will also be a countdown timer that indicates the days left for the campaign.
To sponsor, just click on the 'SPONSOR' button and a pop-up window will appear
Image via Skolafund
Currently, Skolafund only offers online banking and PayPal as payment methods. Sponsors could choose to sponsor RM20, RM50, RM100 or more.
What happens when a campaign succeds or fails?
**If a campaign is successful, a cheque would be written to the student's university or college respectively.** **If a campaign fails, a full refund will be given to each sponsor of the campaign.** However, Skolafund will try to get foundations, businesses and other organisations to help the student out in any way possible.
Setting up a campaign is also very simple. Done in 3 simple steps, a student would have to make sure that he/she spreads the word about the campaign to succeed.
Image via Skolafund
For more information on how to set up a campaign, check out the full details [here] (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zWGyN7CZVl7inbSSofnykuzV8JaB5T8F5OGcHP64NWU/pub?start=false&loop=true&delayms=10000&slide=id.g9d8a75e05_0_1).
Moving forward, Skolafund is coming out with more ways for people to sponsor students!
Image via Skolafund
