The Little Grad rewards program announced today that it has launched a new website, Grad Gold. This rewards program, in partnership with American Education Services (a leading provider of student financial aid services), will allow members to apply their rebate earnings toward their student loan debt.
GradGold offers 1,700 merchants. The press release says that, “College students with normal online shopping habits will earn about $150 per quarter via Grad Gold (although many will earn more).” I have serious doubts about this claim — being in a much higher income bracket than most college students, and being a heavier online shopper than most people, I seldom earn that much in a quarter. But with that claim aside, sure, online shoppers can earn money by shopping through any rebate site…the difference here is that GradGold members’ earnings will go directly toward their student loans. The original LittleGrad site will continue to allow members to direct their earnings either to a Section 529 college savings plan or to a checking or savings account via direct-deposit.
Through GradGold, LittleGrad will be going head-to-head with Upromise, who has offered a similar service (confusingly, to me anyway, also in partnership with AES) since 2003.
Of course, since Upromise has over 7.5 million members, GradGold is looking at quite an uphill climb.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
This is a great post. I wasn’t aware that Little Grad had launched this program. It does seem a bit ironic that one program helps you save and another program helps you pay back the loans that were primarily due to the fact that you couldn’t save enough…
I think that this is a great idea however because the initial savings program is for parents, and the loan pay-back program is for graduates. Two different demographics that give the program continuity pre-college to post-college. Let’s see how it pans out…