College planner tool MyEdu raises $5.5 M

Bain Capital leads series B to help site expand university partner network

MyEdu, a service that helps students save money on college and graduate faster, has raised a $5.5 million series B round led by Bain Capital Ventures.

The Austin, Texas-based service aims to help college students and their families navigate the path to graduation, from selecting a school through to earning a degree, and suggests ways to save throughout. It claims more than two million users at 750 different universities, and targets a 20% cost reduction for each user.

The site offers several applications to help students plan their education. The Explorer and Degree Analyzer apps let prospective students compare the costs, course requirements and workloads of degree programs from different schools. Once a college and degree program are chosen, the Gradation Roadmap and Degree Planner apps help students create a semester-by-semester course schedule, based on data MyEdu aggregates about general ed and department requirements, as well as the workload each course requires, based on university records and student reviews.

I can see this being very useful for students who are less than obsessive compulsive about their academic records—university bureaucracies are notoriously bad at letting students know what requirements might be lurking in the corners, waiting to trap them at school for one more semester. More significantly, the ability to reduce academic costs could make the service particularly attractive to parents. This past year, the UC Regents approved a 32% tuition hike at University of California schools including Berkeley and UCLA. As state budget crises force public education costs to approach private-school rates, more families will likely be looking for ways to save. MyEdu’s approach to money-saving tips reminds me a bit of Mint—give the system access to your data it will suggest ways to help you hang on to more cash.

MyEdu plans to use the new funding to expand its university partner network and introduce new services. It was founded in February of 2008 and has about 33 employees.