Why Privacy Matters When Searching for College Funding
Angry about scholarship platforms selling your data? Most "free" college funding sites exploit your privacy for profit. Learn how to protect your financial aid search!
Look, I'm just going to be honest with you. When I started building what we call MFC (Money for College), I looked at how other scholarship platforms work. And I got angry. Not frustrated. Not annoyed. Angry. Because here's what I found: most of these "free" scholarship sites aren't helping you find money for college. They're making money off you. They collect everything - your GPA, your family's income, your hopes and dreams - and then they sell it. To advertisers. To for-profit colleges. To anyone who'll pay. And the students? The families desperately trying to figure out how to pay for college? They have no idea it's happening.
Why This Made Me So Angry
You're 16 or 17 years old, trying to figure out one of the biggest financial decisions of your life. You shouldn't have to worry about who's tracking you, who's profiling you, or who's about to spam you with predatory loan offers because you clicked "I need help paying for college." Your family's financial situation isn't a product. Your story isn't something to be packaged and sold. And yet that's exactly what's happening across this industry. I could have built MFC the same way. Collect data, sell it, make easy money. That's the playbook. But I couldn't do it. Not to students. Not to families already struggling with the weight of college costs. So I made a different choice: I will never sell your data. Ever. Not "we take privacy seriously" corporate speak. Not "we may share with trusted partners" loopholes. Just a flat no. It's not happening. Someone asked me: "Jeremy, you could make a lot more money selling this data. Why don't you?" Here's why. Because I remember what it felt like to worry about paying for college. Because I know families who took on crushing debt because they didn't know about grants they qualified for. Because students deserve someone in their corner who isn't trying to profit off their stress. And honestly? Because I want to sleep at night. I want to build something I'm proud of. Something that actually helps people instead of exploiting them.
How We Built MFC Differently
When you use MoneyForSchool.ai, you won't suddenly get emails from colleges you've never heard of. You won't get calls from student loan companies. You won't get targeted by credit card offers or insurance companies. Your information stays with us, encrypted, protected, and private. We only send you emails about grants you're actually eligible for, and only if you want them. That's it. No marketing. No spam. No tricks. I've made this legally impossible to change. It's in our privacy policy. It's tracked in our monthly transparency reports. The system literally can't send marketing emails - we don't have the capability built in. Instead of selling your data, here's what we do: We scrape university websites to find grants you're missing. We use AI to match you with opportunities. We make it easy to track deadlines and apply. And we charge a reasonable fee for that service. That's it. No hidden monetization. No data selling. Just a straightforward exchange: you pay us for a service, we provide that service. Our incentives are aligned with yours. We succeed when you find grants. I'm not asking you to trust me blindly. Check our work. Read our complete privacy policy. View our transparency dashboard with real security metrics. See our monthly reports showing exactly how we handle data. Zero data sales. Zero marketing emails. Every month. Publicly documented. If we ever break this promise, you'll know immediately. And honestly, I'd deserve every bit of backlash we'd get. Here's what makes me sad: the fact that "we don't sell your data" is somehow noteworthy. That should be the baseline. But it's not. So here we are. I wish every platform treated student data with the respect it deserves. But until that changes, I'm building what I wish existed when I was looking for college funding. If you're reading this and you're stressed about paying for college, I get it. It's overwhelming. The system is broken. You shouldn't have to navigate this alone. But you also shouldn't have to sacrifice your privacy to get help. You deserve better. You deserve a platform that's actually on your side. That's what I'm building. That's the promise.
- Jeremy Co-Founder, MoneyForSchool.ai jeremy@moneyforschool.ai
P.S. If you have questions about our privacy practices, email me directly. I'll respond personally. This matters too much to outsource to a support team.