10 years ago, I got screwed.

Like millions of students before and after me, I transferred and assumed it was going to be simple. A year after I transferred I learned I lost most of my college credits. The cost: another $60,000 and a year of my life. I was gutted.

Long story short (we’ll write about this in the future), I came up with a method leveraging existing information to get all of my credits back. It worked.

It saved me $60,000. My friends tried it and it saved them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You’d think helping my friends felt great, but I actually got more frustrated because each win kept furthering a realization: this is all totally preventable.

Why are people running into problems with the education system?

Well, it probably starts when we tell 17-18 year olds to make multi-hundred thousand dollar life-altering decisions with little to no information.

Then we confuse them more by telling them to go get financial “aid.” Unfortunately, most of the dollars branded as financial “aid” are just loans.

From there, we tell them to go figure it out, and surprise, kids end up making common mistakes: taking classes that don’t count towards graduation, picking the wrong major, credits not transferring, taking too many classes, and more.

These compound into longer graduation times and insane student debt. Debt that slows people down from buying a house, having more kids, or from taking risks and betting on themselves.

Again, all of this is totally preventable, so what’s the actual cause?

No one knows, literally.

There’s a huge lack of information problem for all participants of the education system: students, parents, high schools, community colleges, four-year universities, and governments.

High schools are understaffed on counselors, counselors already wearing many hats. They simply can’t be college counselors on top of their existing responsibilities.

Community colleges and four year universities down the road from each other work together well, but go past any drivable distance and the information on credits, requirements, and more are suddenly inaccessible.

Governments don’t have any more information than the aforementioned parties, but this has spiraled into a socioeconomic issue, which inherently involves them too.

The core problem is a lack of information problem which created an inefficient education system. One where there are no winners. That’s why we started Tasseled.

Fixing the information problem makes the education system efficient.

Luckily, the classes, colleges, pricing arbitrage, and all of the infrastructure needed to make education efficient actually exists right now.

Focusing on the information problem is the key to making education efficient for everyone. You can see that with our first product.

Our degree optimizer helps students and parents save tens of thousands of dollars on their education, while preventing those common mistakes I and countless others ran into. High school counselors don’t have to wear another hat. All community colleges and four year universities will have better transparency and interoperability.

Tasseled is an education logistics company building products that will follow this same theme: help every participant in the education system navigate and utilize all of its existing resources, making the education system efficient.

Why does this matter?

An efficient education system means we all win.

An efficient system means lower pressure. We can stop putting 17-18 year olds in high pressure environments to figure out their lives which ends up forcing them into debt.

An efficient system is more meritocratic. Today, you have to shell out tens of thousands for private college counselors or need to be incredibly well-connected in order to get a spot at the most desirable institutions. Most people don’t have access to that, nor should they need it.

An efficient system means no more student debt. Student debt is a symptom of an inefficient system that has failed to utilize the hundreds of billions of dollars available. Making the system efficient permanently eliminates student debt.

A low pressure, highly meritocratic, debt-free system enables people to take real chances in life.

Remember being told you could be anything you wanted?

At some point, we stopped believing that. It probably happened when you got to high school and were fed the same standard script: get good grades, go to a good college, and get a safe job. Given that the current system burdens so many with debt, it’s a pragmatic script

This has led to lower risk and lower progress. The world doesn’t need more bankers, consultants, or politicians. We need people to bet on themselves and tackle the hard problems in climate, housing, aerospace, manufacturing, health, energy, and more.

Making a lower pressure, more meritocratic, and debt-free education system will lead to more people taking risks and tackling hard problems. That’s what we’re driving towards, and that's the fundamental reason for why we’re building Tasseled.