myUface Blog

We get lots of questions about the fact that myUface is free for everyone – free for universities and free for students.  People seem skeptical:

“Is it really free?  I don’t have to pay anything?”

“OK, we understand, it’s ‘free.’  But seriously, what do I have to pay?”

This skepticism is understandable.  After all, in the multi-billion dollar industry built around international students, most companies are out to make money.  Students are used to paying for test preparation, for agents, for visa help – for almost everything.

Nonetheless, it’s true:  myUface is FREE for students, and FREE for universities.

No, really, it is.

The next question we get is simple:  “Why?”

Look, it’s not that we hate money, or that we don’t care about making a profit:  we do.  But our first concern is creating something that is useful in bringing international students and universities together.  All of the founders of myUface have worked abroad.  We have all met talented, smart students who would have been great successes at a U.S. university, but never made it there because the system of applying to those universities was too complicated, or the application fees were too high.  It breaks our heart to think of all the students scattered around the world that deserve to be at a U.S. university, and could get there with just a little help.

If we can be that help, we’ll be happy.

Then, after a year or two, if the site is working well and if we’re making those connections, then we’ll stop and think about how to make a small amount of money.  Maybe through advertising?  Through university subscriptions?  Who knows?

But for now, we’re free.  F-R-E-E FREE!  We don’t want to let something as stupid as money get in the way of what we think is a pretty good idea.  And it’s worth mentioning, there are some things we will never do:

• We will never take money from students.  Never, never, never.
• We will never charge universities a placement fee based on a particular student.  We may one day ask them to subscribe to the site, but we will never charge them for students once they’re signed up.

In this way we can avoid conflicts of interest and keep the focus where it needs to be:  on getting talented students to U.S. universities.