Two years ago, my co-founder Sabrina Manville and I presented Edmit at SXSW EDU. We talked about the challenges in the higher education landscape that had inspired us to launch Edmit in the first place, and our vision to help build a new system that puts the financial needs of students and families at the center of the college admissions process.
Since then, we’ve continued that relentless focus on the needs of customers (in our case, students and their families). That’s something we have in common with Tonio DeSorrento and the team at Vemo Education, which helps colleges and universities better align the cost of college with the value it produces for students after they graduate.
When Tonio and I met four years ago, neither of us knew we'd ever work together. But we knew we led our companies in similar ways. We had similar values, and similar visions for what higher education could and should be.
Vemo and Edmit had both tuned into the disconnect between the cost of college and life after college. We each thought about bridging that disconnect in a different way—Edmit by helping students understand and improve their educational return on investment (ROI); Vemo by helping colleges communicate and stand behind their ROI with outcomes-based funding.
When we got a chance to marry those two approaches — to align the needs of our school and student customers — we embraced it. Which brings me to some exciting news: Vemo Education has acquired Edmit. Together, we'll develop products and tools that help students and colleges more than either of us could have done on our own.
Importantly, Edmit will continue to work directly with students and families and will retain complete editorial independence. That means the content we create for students will remain transparent, truthful, and unbiased. For students, the partnership also means that Edmit will have more resources to help users make better informed decisions about college and improve their ROI.
For colleges, the partnership means a more holistic approach to driving ROI for students, improving enrollment and graduation rates, and making changes when they're not setting the right expectations.
I'll give my colleague Tonio the last word: "There’s more to come from the Vemo and Edmit teams over the next few weeks. Until then, we look forward to continuing to push our partners to build a higher education system rooted in transparency, affordability, and a commitment to student outcomes—a system that reflects our shared vision for higher education as an engine of economic mobility and opportunity."
