The Problem

Dream High wants to change the way we think about higher education counseling. As a student today, you are exposed to a variety of methods to collect general information about higher education institutions. The internet is practically overflowing with documents, online portals, and top 10 lists of the best colleges and universities to apply for. However, when it comes to getting personal higher education advice, these students must make an appointment and wait in line at the school counselors office.

In addition to the delay in access to information, the attention of each counselor is split amongst a large group of students. With only 262,300** school and career counselor positions available 25,139,000*** students between the ages of 14 and 19, that's 1 counselor to every 96 students (assuming all career counselor positions have been filled and they only focus on this age group). Include college students in need of counseling and this number rises to 1 counselor to every 179 students.

The Opportunity

Education is rapidly becoming a $1 trillion industry, representing 10% of America's GNP and second in size only to the health care industry. Federal and State expenditures on education exceed $750 billion. Education companies, with over $80 billion in annual revenues, already constitute a large sector in the education arena.*

Currently, the education sector is largely based upon government funding. With the success and growth of MOOCs, we know that the public and private sectors are ready to spend money on education. The problem is even with money, there is a serious lack in supply of qualified candidates to fill important education roles such as higher education counseling.

Dream High wants to change this by opening up a new channel of counselors. The world watches today as the concept of sharing economy steps up to provide in demand resources to industries such as hotel, transportation, and e-commerce. Dream High wants to take that concept and apply it to higher education counseling, tapping into a large and existing network of educated professionals, who can with the right tools, can become the perfect higher education counselors for these students in need.

Dream High matches professionals and academics to students to provide timely and valuable higher education counseling. Our matching algorithm finds the optimal counselor that will increase the chances of students finding a higher education institution that fits their education and career goals.