EdAid: The blueprint for the hybrid higher education experience of the future

What is EdAid?

EdAid is an alternative lending platform that enables thousands of students from under-represented backgrounds to access the world’s best universities and pay for their studies interest-free. EdAid was bootstrapped from its origins in Dubai in 2011 and is privately funded by its founder CEO, Tom Woolf.

EdAid partners with universities to enable students to study now, and pay later for their education via a deferred payment plan. This shared risk, shared reward model of paying for university ensures that all parties have ‘skin in the game’ and is emerging as the future model for how students pay for their education.

What is the DIFC Innovation Hub?

It is an 80,000 sq ft space within DIFC’s Gate Avenue that will be the fastest growing hub to help start-ups grow, access funding and develop future talent. It provides access to best in class learning space for undergraduates, postgraduates and executives through the DIFC Academy.

The DIFC Academy’s four schools, including the soon to be launched initiative about future skills development, in partnership with EdAid, will support up to 25,000 students a year.

How are potential students identified and where do they come from?

Students apply to their chosen programme and are accepted onto their course first. Once accepted, EdAid will support each student with financing options for their studies and provide co-working, co-study space for classes, tutorials, study groups, career counselling, LinkedIn and job placement support.

EdAid’s students come from all over the world, and many are the first in their family to attend university. We are determined to grow the number of Emirati students and will be announcing a number of initiatives in 2021.

Alya Al Zarouni, director of DIFC Academy (left), and Thomas Woolf, founder of EdAid

Where do your students study?

EdAid has funded students to study at over 100 different institutions including the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, King’s College London, Columbia University, UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University in the US. EdAid focuses predominantly on courses in STEM, Law and Finance that lead to vocationally led outcomes for students who would otherwise not normally be able to afford to attend these universities.

Are all the courses online?

EdAid supports online and on-campus programmes. However, Covid-19 has accelerated the shift to online learning and the opportunity for universities to expand access to a diverse range of students is seismic. Students with the skills to succeed in the jobs of the future such as software engineering, cybersecurity, data analytics and artificial intelligence are in high demand.

In direct response to this, it is critical that students have curated pathways and support networks to build careers in economically prosperous sectors such as FinTech; an area in which DIFC and Dubai Future District is becoming a world leader. Many students do not have high-speed broadband or a space that they can study effectively. We provide that.

We believe that the new initiatives that will be launched by EdAid and DIFC will be the blueprint for the hybrid higher education experience of the future.