What’s Your Human Capital Score?

One of the main complaints many students have when looking to close the college funding gap have is that it is increasingly difficult for them to get approved for private loans . People Capital is hoping to help students by providing a metric that can help lenders get an idea of a student’s potential through a Human Capital Score. Alan Samuels, the Chief Product Officer for People Capital, spoke with me about this new credit score .

“Our metric looks at someone’s potential,” he said. “It takes into account high school attended, GPA and achievement scores and then projects a probable income path , offering insight into the likelihood that they will be able to repay loans.”

The score will be used on People Capital’s forthcoming P2P student lending platform. “We plan to provide a platform where lending rates are set by auction method, bidding rates down for students and providing them with access to additional capital.”

I looked at my own income projection, leaving off the fact that I have gone on to get a Master’s degree. I simply filled out the form as if I were finishing up my B.S.

You can see on either side how the green indicates a range. I am happy to say, though, that for being 7 years out, I have exceeded the projection offered by my Human Capital Score.

Samuels says that the score is mostly designed to be ideal for undergraduate students . Graduate funding is a different animal altogether. It will still be possible to obtain graduate loans through People Capital, but the metrics aren’t optimized for graduate students. “We are developing a graduate model, though,” Samuels said. “That model will probably be used in conjunction with the FICO score , since students will have had opportunity to build credit profiles.”

In the end, this is another way to try and reduce human behavior down to something that can be easily quantified. But for students looking for a little more help in getting approved for education loans, this might be helpful.