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Despite spending the past 7 years enrolled in post-secondary education, I don’t have much student debt. I’m one of the lucky ones.

I was lucky enough to have a hometown with an exceptional university allowing me to live at home for much of my undergraduate education. I was lucky to live in Canada where university tuition, while expensive, has yet to reach the, quite frankly, shameful highs of countries like the United States and the UK. I was lucky to find a part-time job that paid significantly more than minimum wage, allowed to me to study at work, and worked around my class schedule.

In a strange twist of fate I was lucky to be denied entry into the UK for my masters degree, forcing me to stay home another year and work, building up savings and reducing the amount of student loan I needed to take out to complete my MA. And I’m lucky now to be living and teaching in South Korea, giving me a job which affords the time and money to pursue my academic interests while allowing me to pay back my student loans.

I’m lucky, but I know a lot of people who aren’t. According to one survey, the average American student with a masters degree has $47,503 worth of debt (this includes both student loan debt and credit card debt). Statistics Canada states that the average Canadian student with a bachelors degree has $19,500 worth of debt.

Students in Canada, the US, and Britain are being choked with debt.

Project Further hopes to help students who have trouble making ends meet. Building off the phenomenal success of crowd-funding projects like Kickstarter and PetriDish, Project Further hopes to bring crowd-funding to higher education.

The basic concept of Project Further is simple. Students from any walk of life who need help paying for their education are encouraged to tell their personal story of their journey through higher education. Site members who find specific stories compelling will then contribute to the student’s education fund through a “microcontribution” chosen by the donor. Students who reach their funding goals will then receive the funds, but must donate 1% of their raised funds to another student’s education fund. This encourages successful students to pay it forward, sharing the wealth.

While any crowd-funding platform has the potential for abuse, I wonder if people will inflate the truth to make them seem more deserving of funding, I think Project Further is a fantastic idea. Regardless of what country you live in tuition rates are on the rise – being a student is more expensive than ever. Crowd-funded education allows students who need a small helping hand receive the help they need to make it to the next paycheque, loan deposit, or parental loan.

Project Further is currently in a beta stage. I’ve requested an invite to the beta and I’ll blog more about it when I have access to it. I don’t know how it will turn out, but Project Further has the potential to help students who need that little extra to make their education work.