With the rising costs of higher education, the average student can easily rack up tens of thousands of dollars in debt, and that’s not taking into account the cost of post-graduate studies. The looming possibility of student debt and the pressures to pursue higher education in many cultures, including Tamil culture, often leave young Canadians feeling that they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

It was with the desire to break down financial barriers to accessing higher education that Mark Mauleesan, the CEO/Founder of Scolaris.ca, sought to create an unconventional way to empower students to fund their studies. Mark got the idea for education crowdfunding (raising funds by reaching out to your networks to financially support an initiative) from his own personal experience of trying to pay his way through medical school.

Based in Toronto, Scolaris launched early this month and is Canada’s first and only crowdfunding scholarship platform for students across the country, from high school grads to those currently enrolled in an accredited university, college or trade/technical school.

Scolaris allows students to create a custom profile online and share it with their social networks. A few months before the start of a new term, students are encouraged to create a scholarship campaign. This includes setting a reasonable target dollar amount (the average Canadian student’s tuition is $5366), a target deadline (which can be extended if needed) and campaigning by reaching out to their family, friends, colleagues, etc. for donations through social media/networking.

During their campaigns students are encouraged to build their portfolio with relevant academic and extracurricular content such as photos, videos, documents, awards and even track their progress through their own personal blog.

Scolaris provides this platform for free, and stays afloat, by charging donors a fee of 8% per dollar, in addition to $0.30 per donation to cover administrative costs, overhead, credit card processing, transaction fees and PayPal fees. While other fundraising sites charge close to 10% per dollar, offer their services for monthly fees and/or have hidden user fees, Scolaris operates on the principal that the student should not be charged to raise funds for their tuition.

But what about those opportunists, who may try to use Scolaris to raise money for their own use? We all know that friend who used their student loan to fund a vacation, or to buy an iPhone. To ensure that funds raised go toward a student’s tuition, Scolaris first verifies that those who register on its site have been accepted to and/or have been enrolled in an accredited post secondary institution. All funds raised on Scolaris are processed (minus the fees) and paid directly to the educational or financial institution processing the student’s tuition fees. The money is never sent to the campaigners.

The beta site is currently open to Canadian users only, but Scolaris has future plans of expanding its scholarship platform to other countries like the United States, the UK and Australia. And who knows what the possibilities are? Insurmountable student debt could become a thing of the past.

To get more updates on Scolaris, “like” their Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/ScolarisCanada !