Climb
An education loan provider that increases earning potential
- Company
- Financial Inclusion
- America
- 2019
- Active
The challenge
In the United States, students have borrowed $1.8 trillion to afford their college educations but many are graduating without the tangible skills to access well-paying employment. While vocational training is gaining popularity as an alternative, financing these programs – which do not qualify for federal student loans – presents a barrier to entry for low-income students.
The innovation
Climb partners with training programs in every state and online to offer students affordable education loans for courses in over 25 career paths. The company’s training partners partially guarantee each Climb loan made to their students. As a result of this risk-sharing loan model, Climb can make loans to some borrowers with low or no credit scores and without requiring co-signers.
The impact
Climb has helped over 11,500 borrowers afford high-quality education and increase their salaries by an average of 81% after their training. Two thirds of the borrowers reported that they could not have attended their training program without Climb’s financing.