I know, it sounds a little fishy to me too. However, it makes sense once you’ve got all the details. Upromise recently sent me an email about their company as one solution to the rising college costs coupled with an increased competition for college scholarships.
What Upromise does:
Upromise was launched based on the philosophy that “Everyone should be able to afford a college education.” They partnered with various companies to make this a reality.
How Upromise works:
You sign up at the Upromise site – it’s free.
When you shop online through Upromise partners you earn 1-25% back on all your eligible purchases.
That 1-25% goes directly into your Upromise account. Later you can decide if you’d like to “a) invest them in a 529 college savings plan, b) use them to pay down student loans, c) receive a check for college expenses.”
Upromise partners:
Upromise is connected to 600+ online retailers, 8,000+ restaurants, 21,000+ grocery and drug stores, and various other services as well, such as Budget Truck Rentals and Real Estate companies. See all their partners.
What I think:
I can’t give a personal answer, not having used the service. However, I did check out their sign up page and read the fine print around the site, and it seems like a legit and easy way to save some money for college.
I’m also, being that I’m not a user, unsure of just how fast saving add up. If you take the medium level kick back, say, 12% and figure that in on one $50 shopping purchase a month, that would be a savings of about $72 a year – not tons, but if you use Upromise for most of your shopping needs, it’s easy to see how your savings could add up quickly.
Special scholarships right now:
Currently, Upromise is running a special extra scholarship deal. They note:
As part of our mission to make college more accessible, we’ve increased the amount of our Upromise scholarship fund to $500,000, twice what it was when we introduced it a year ago. That means 200 of the best and brightest students will receive scholarships of $2,500 each for the 2009-2010 academic year.
If you’re interested, hop over to Upromise to learn more.
If you’ve used Upromise, I’m interested in knowing what you think. Let me know in the comments.
[...] Upromise helps you save for college as you shop. [...]
I signed up with them 2 or 3 years ago. All I did was register my credit/debit/grocery store cards with them and I get a few cents back here and there. I’ve only amassed about $6 so far. Still, I figure that even if I never get more than $50 out of it, it’s still $50 that I didn’t have before and I didn’t really have to do anything other than make my normal purchases. I should try buying something through their site but, honestly, I always forget!
[...] Spend Money To Save For College [...]
When my daughter signed up for her college loan, part of it was upromise sign up. Then when she went through upromise and bought her text books at barnes and noble, she got 10.00 back on her upromise account. Not a lot, but every little bit helps.