Founder of StepEx launches the first “Future Earnings Agreements” for undergraduates

StepEx, a fully FCA authorised fintech, providing infrastructure for universities to accept payment with a share of future earnings, has undergraduate degrees on their platform for the first time courtesy of the University of Buckingham. This is the first time an undergraduate offering has been made available and is a testament to Buckingham’s underlying faith in their graduate earnings outcomes and commitment to making their courses accessible to all home students. The university, home of the two-year degree and one of the UK’s five independent universities, will be the first UK university to offer undergraduates the access to finance they need to achieve their professional potential.

Founded in 2017, StepEx is the only regulated provider of Future Earnings Agreements across the UK and Europe (FEAs; variously called “Risk Sharing Agreements”, “Income Share Agreements” and “Human Capital Contracts”). Students pay for their qualification with a small share of the initial earnings they achieve with that qualification, meaning that course providers have an incentive to ensure they provide a relevant education and select students they believe will benefit from the course. This also opens access to expensive courses that have traditionally only been available to all home students.

Utilising Open Banking data and machine learning, StepEx can reliably predict and verify an applicant’s future earnings by using cutting edge analytics and algorithms. The company also give its education and financial institution partners meaningful, data-driven feedback about pricing and the value courses are delivering as well as building the largest and richest dataset of graduate earnings.

Adoption of this product by education providers has been rapid with a twenty-fold increase in the number of “Future Earnings Agreements” provided in 2021 on StepEx infrastructure compared to the year before. Education providers have committed to at least quadruple that number to tens of millions of pounds of qualifications in 2022.

James Tooley, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Buckingham – “My vision for the University of Buckingham is to make it known for both affordability and accessibility. Our two-year degrees reduce total costs and get graduates into work faster. Now, thanks to StepEx, we are able to make our success with employability accessible to a more diverse range of students. We believe in our students and, with the risk sharing agreements that StepEx can administer for us, we are now able to invest in them. This aligns our interests with theirs and addresses many of the problems with the current system for funding students. We look forward to working closely with StepEx to bring to many more young people the offer of a rewarding education and future.”

Daniel George, founder of StepEx says ‘We are delighted that University of Buckingham is using our infrastructure to open its courses to everyone and invest in the future of its students. By offering its Risk Sharing Agreements, the university will open its doors to a wide range of students from diverse backgrounds to study. With funds for students becoming less accessible, debt is a poor solution to this problem, with lending terms based on past income, which restricts opportunity for younger and less wealthy individuals and limits upward social mobility. Outcome-based finance fixes this and opens up enormous economic opportunities for people who would otherwise be priced out of the kind of courses that unlock significantly higher earning potential.’

Wanting to ensure that quality education is accessible to all regardless of socio-economic status, StepEx was founded to enable people to pay for higher education with a share of their future earnings. StepEx is the only enterprise provider of outcome-based finance using predictive sophistication and access to date to unlock opportunities for everyone.

Already working with two of the top three business schools in the world — London Business School and INSEAD and renowned UK based university Cranfield, StepEx can help institutions attract and retain a diverse student population, provide access for minority populations, raise academic standards, improve retention rates and provide a practical alternative to scholarship funds.