Charlotte Startup Launches Scholarship Search Engine to Help Families Pay for College

INDIAN LAND, S.C., April 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --  GoodCall, a Charlotte-based tech startup backed by Red Ventures, launched GoodCall Scholarship Search this week, providing students the power to identify and apply for college scholarship opportunities with greater ease. The effort is geared towards helping students battle rising higher education tuition costs by improving access to an increasing number of private scholarships without having to disclose their personal information.

"With the average cost of a 4-year degree totaling more than $130,000, it is important that families have tools and resources at their disposal to make college tuition more affordable," says GoodCall founder, Eppie Vojt. "We're crawling thousands of scholarship provider websites and using proprietary search technology to provide the most comprehensive and accessible scholarship database on the web."

GoodCall Scholarship Search uses search technology and advanced algorithms to help students easily identify scholarships with a low barrier to entry, as well as ones they have a greater likelihood of winning, all without requiring personally identifiable information. The site also includes scam detection to help protect students from identity theft. With listings updated daily, students are able to find new opportunities as soon as they become available.

"The goal of GoodCall is to liberate data from behind paywalls and registration forms, creating a 100% open environment for users. Unlike other scholarship sites, we never sell students' information to third party marketing groups," says Vojt. "Within the first week of the GoodCall site go-live, we've already helped hundreds of students across the country find scholarships that will reduce their tuition bills come September – and the feedback has been immensely positive."

In addition to Charlotte, N.C.-based  schools, universities across the country such as University of California at Berkeley, University of Nevada, University of Maryland and Western Illinois University have already started recommending GoodCall to their student body. 

"The biggest challenges my students face when applying to private scholarships is being overwhelmed, feeling they do not have a chance, and feeling the time to apply is not worth a small chance," said Renee Rudolph, Student Engagement and Scholarship Coordinator for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. "GoodCall provides a great visual tool that may just reduce the 'burden' of applying for scholarships."

The GoodCall Scholarship Search Engine is the first of many student-focused technologies rolling out over the next 12 months from the Charlotte-based startup.

"Charlotte has a great climate for tech startups and we're excited to be part of the buzz of new businesses launching in the area," says Vojt. "As we expand our team of developers and engineers, we hope to recruit even more local talent to our team."

For more information or to start searching for scholarships, visit GoodCall.com.

About GoodCall:GoodCall.com is a consumer-focused website where people and information intersect. Founded in February 2015, GoodCall was born from the idea that in an increasingly complex online marketplace, consumers deserve access to the information they need to make educated financial decisions. From scholarships to college rankings and beyond, families visit GoodCall to find unbiased, unfiltered information to help make the decisions that will shape their future.

About Red Ventures: Founded in 2000, Red Ventures employs more than 2,300 people and is the country's largest technology-enabled platform for growing sales and marketing businesses. Its expertise spans across multiple industries including Home Services, Energy, Financial Services, Insurance and Software. Success is driven by advanced Internet analytics, proprietary technology and the company's greatest competitive advantage – the people. Red Ventures has twice been ranked among the top 20 fastest-growing companies on the Inc. 500 list and has been named a Best Place to Work in Charlotte, NC for 7 years running. Learn more at www.redventures.com.

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SOURCE GoodCall