Adjusting for inflation, college tuition in the US has increased 747.8% since 1963. Overall student debt has ballooned by a rate of 766.3% since 1995. These numbers are astonishing; not only are universities and colleges more expensive than ever, but they are also harder than ever to actually get into. The barriers to entry are making it difficult for students to access higher education, while most careers demand a 4-year degree at a minimum. These problems have been targeted by the government, private organizations, and educational institutions themselves, but nothing has seemed to truly change the landscape until now.
In 2014, Kalyan Varma Kuchampudi, a recent college graduate himself, decided to take matters into his own hands. He developed Almabase, a sophisticated software that applied technology to one of the seemingly insurmountable challenges faced by students all over the US affording their college educations. Universities have historically relied on alumni donations to provide scholarships and keep tuition affordable, but in recent years, alumni engagement has fallen sharply.
While alumni engagement has been slashed in half over the last two decades, tuition has shot sky-high. Instead of reaching out to alumni and hosting fundraisers like they used to, universities need to connect using digital channels, and Almabase takes out all the guesswork of reaching alumni in today's digital landscape. Not only does Almabase do the heavy lifting in terms of alumni outreach, but its next-level data analytics component uses artificial intelligence to understand where donations are coming from, which campaigns are most successful, and more.
As time goes on, Almabase is becoming even more effective. In 2023, a new feature is set to launch that will help fundraising teams write engaging emails, alumni relations teams to start alumni programs that boost engagement, and improve the efficiency of university advancement teams at the same time. Many of these advancement teams operate with a lean staffing model, making it hard to scale and engage at the levels needed, but Almabase evens the playing field.
Today, Almabase has helped over 500 universities and educational institutions connect with 6.5 million alumni and students to raise over $20 million in online donations. Almabase helps add value to the lives of students and alumni through mentorship opportunities, job connections, and an easy-to-access alumni directory. This is the way educational institutions need to think about engagement today, but with Almabase, there's essentially no thinking required.
Within the next 10 years, Kalyan aims to serve over 3,000 educational institutions and connect more than 100 million alumni all over the country. With this kind of scale, the impact on the cost of college for students in the US would be astronomical. This approach truly works; one of Almbase's clients, The University of Texas at El Paso, has seen a 309% increase in alumni engagement after only 6 months of their subscription. Another beat its fundraising goal by 142% by garnering support from more than 600 alumni donors.
Kalyan has always believed that there is a way to build businesses around social good, and Almabase is the most recent illustration of his belief in practice. Before Almabase, Kalyan co-founded SocialHeart, an online marketplace created to connect social good businesses with customers. SocialHeart was instrumental in building the foundation of Kalyan's technology entrepreneurship journey and gave him the right tools to conceive Almabase. This time, Almabase is here to stay. To share his journey with other entrepreneurs and inspire more innovation in the social impact space, Kalyan gave a TED Talk about the future of education and how Almabase is making an impact. He has also shared his thoughts with Forbes, detailing how his creation disrupted the education sector and enhanced student engagement overall.
Kalyan's dedication as a technology entrepreneur helped him become a "bootstrap success story." He leads a major alumni software company and hasn't conducted a single round of institutional funding. Today, Almabase is one of the three largest alumni software providers in the US and is geared to become the largest through strategic partnerships with organizations like Blackbaud. The price of college tuition may very well be a national crisis, but with leaders like Kalyan, there's tangible hope that things can change.
