Usman Haroon
LONDON — In 2012, Ismail Jeilani was faced with a choice. The North Londoner had been accepted to King’s College London, but university fees had just tripled. He could go — but doing so would mean paying £9,000 a year for his education, and taking out a loan he wasn’t comfortable with.
“It’s to do wih my own values, combined with my attitudes towards debt alongside dealing with interest,” he told Business Insider. “I didn’t think it was fair that I had to choose between what I held closely to myself, and my right to education, and I felt that anybody who’s in that position should definitely be able to do both.”
And that’s exactly what Jeilani did.
He went to King’s, paying the nine grand a year — but he didn’t take out a student loan. Instead, he moonlighted as a personal tutor, teaching Arabic grammar and economics for between 15 and 20 hours a week alongside his studies.
It left little room for anything else — “I wasn’t able to commit to extracurricular activities … I did Taekwondo for around two months and I couldn’t physically carry on because the time wasn’t there any more” — but it paid off, and he left university completely debt-free.
After a stint working for Google, the entrepreneur is now using his experience to build an app with two friends to help others do similar — it’s called Scoodle.
It’s built by three old friends
Scoodle is an app that connects tutors to students. Students can search for tutors, book and pay for lessons, and message them, all through the app, while it gives the tutors control over how they manage their students and create group lessons.
Let’s say you want to learn French. You download the app, enter your subject and location, and can then browse…