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Investors now have a new target: college admissions. A group of Silicon Valley's top venture capitalists have been pouring resources into an education nonprofit that boosts the number of low-income students at the nation's top colleges. Part of their interest, they say, is to help build a deeper talent pool for American corporations, especially in jobs requiring training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, so-called STEM skills.The investors, who include LinkedIn Corp. co-founder Reid Hoffman, have contributed financial and advisory support to Quest-Bridge, conceived in 2003 to connect disadvantaged students with elite colleges that pay a recruiting fee for the services. The service has spread to 35 mostly private colleges, including Stanford University and Yale University, and helps place about 2,000 low-income students from an applicant pool that now tops 10,000 a year—one of the largest such programs in the country.
"I am attracted to organizations with potential massive scale, disruptive potential and sustainability," Mr. Hoffman said in an email. "QuestBridge has all three of these features."
America's top schools have billions of dollars in financial aid available, but it often goes to low-income students they identify in the nation's most populous urban areas. Admissions directors are rarely able to visit smaller cities or rural areas, said Michael McCullough, who founded QuestBridge with his wife, Ana, and is now a partner in a medical-investing firm. "It's not intuitive to [a disadvantaged] kid that an Ivy League school would give them a quarter-million dollars," said Dr. McCullough. The McCulloughs created a network of recruiters, including high-school counselors, to help identify a pool of gifted, disadvantaged students. (Fonte: J. Carlton, The Wall Street Journal Europe 15-05-15)
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