Persist is a platform that helps graduate students discover private financing options tailored to their individual profiles, offering personalized lender matches without requiring an account or impacting credit. The service uses an ethically verified lender standard and transparent methodology, ensuring that recommendations are independent and not influenced by referral fees, allowing students to explore options at their own pace.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Graduate students seeking private loans often face a fragmented market with limited transparency, making it difficult to identify lenders that match their specific citizenship, residency, and financial circumstances. The lack of unbiased guidance and the risk of pressure‑filled applications can lead to suboptimal financing choices.
Solution
Persist offers a free, online decision‑support tool that matches graduate students with privately‑offered loans tailored to their self‑reported profiles. Users answer a short questionnaire, after which Persist displays a ranked list of ethically verified lenders whose publicly disclosed criteria align with the student's situation. The platform provides clear explanations of each lender’s fit, citizenship or residency restrictions, and loan terms without initiating any applications or affecting the user's credit. Persist’s rankings are generated solely on profile compatibility and are not influenced by referral fees or paid placements, ensuring unbiased, pressure‑free information. All lender listings adhere to the Persist Ethical Lender Verification Standard, a rigorous, publicly sourced evaluation framework designed to protect borrowers.
Target Audience
Primary users are graduate students in the United States who need private financing for tuition, living expenses, or research costs and seek unbiased, transparent lender information.
Features
- No‑account required entry with a simple questionnaire to capture student profile data
- Personalized lender rankings based on citizenship, residency, and financial criteria
- Transparent, detailed lender profiles that explain fit and key loan features
- Ethical Lender Verification Standard ensuring only vetted lenders are displayed
- Clear indication that no applications are started on the platform and no credit checks are performed
- Independent, fee‑free model guaranteeing rankings are not sold to lenders