Abigail Seldin

Abigail Pamela Seldin (born January 1988) is an American philanthropist, higher education expert, and edtech entrepreneur. She is the CEO and co-founder of the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation, and is known for founding College Abacus, a net price calculator aggregator company, which she sold to Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC Group).[1] In 2020, she founded SwiftStudent, a free financial aid tool for students.[2] She is a Rhodes Scholar, and in 2015, she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Education category.[3][1]

Abigail Seldin
Born
Abigail Pamela Seldin
NationalityAmerican
OccupationCEO & Co-Founder, Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation
Years active2008–present
Known forCo-founder of College Abacus and SwiftStudent
Spouse(s)
Whitney Haring-Smith
​
​
(m. 2012)​
WebsiteProfile

Early life and education

Seldin was born in January 1988 to Judith Seldin-Cohen and David Seldin.[4] She attended Phillips Academy,[5][6] followed by the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 2009 with a BA and MS degree in anthropology.[7] While in college, Seldin co-curated a gallery exhibition, Fulfilling a Prophecy: The Past and Present of the Lenape in Pennsylvania, at the Penn Museum.[5][8]

In 2008, Seldin was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship[9] to attend Oxford University,[10] where she pursued a DPhil in social anthropology.[4] She completed a fellowship in cultural heritage tourism at Hong Kong Tourism Board as a Luce scholar.[11]

Career

In 2012, Seldin and her husband, Whitney Haring-Smith, co-founded College Abacus, a web tool that allows prospective students to compare individualized financial aid packages from various American colleges and universities.[12][10] She served as the CEO of College Abacus until it was acquired by ECMC Group, a student loan collection agency.[1] After the acquisition, Seldin served as VP of Innovation at the Washington DC office of ECMC Group.[13] Under Seldin's leadership, debt-repayment and other data from the Obama Administration's College Scorecard initiative were incorporated into College Abacus.[14][15]

Prior to the selection of Richard Cordray, Seldin was leaked as a candidate to lead the Office of Federal Student Aid during the Biden Administration.[16][17]

In 2019, she co-founded the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation, a charitable organization.[18]

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she led the creation of a no-cost online service called SwiftStudent, to help students submit a financial aid appeal to their institution's aid office.[19][20][21] SwiftStudent was named a finalist in Fast Company's World Changing Ideas Awards.[22] As of 2020, the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation had partnered with 17 colleges and higher education organizations to test features of SwiftStudent with focus groups of students and financial aid officers.[2]

In 2021, Seldin published a research report on fraud and links to sex trafficking in certain schools which offer massage therapy certification.[23] The report on sex trafficking and federal financial aid, which studied 18 institutions in five states,[24] was cited as a rationale for an investigation by the United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform in summer 2021.[25]

Personal life

Seldin met fellow Rhodes Scholar Whitney Haring-Smith in 2009 and they married in Florida in 2012.[4]

References
  1. Lieber, Ron. "Comparing College Costs the easy way". The New York Times.
  2. Douglas-Gabriel, Danielle (April 15, 2020). "As colleges brace for financial aid appeals, there's a new tool to help students file them". The Washington Post.
  3. "2015: 30 under 30 - Education". Forbes.
  4. "Abigail Seldin and Whitney Haring-Smith". The New York Times. May 27, 2012.
  5. Snyder, Susan (November 25, 2008). "Penn scholar's road to a Rhodes scholarship". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
  6. Malinda Stafford Blustain (2018). Glory, Trouble, and Renaissance at the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology. ISBN 9781496205414.
  7. "Abigail Seldin - Founder of College Abacus". HuffPost.
  8. Hurdle, John (December 1, 2008). "Exhibition shows how native American tribe survived". Reuters.
  9. "TARS 2019" (PDF).
  10. Maffeo, Lauren (November 6, 2014). "Why I turned down Silicon Valley for Washington, DC". The Next Web.
  11. Zweifler, Seth (November 6, 2014). "Two graduates selected as Luce Scholars". The Daily Pennsylvanian.
  12. Grant, Rebecca (September 25, 2013). "Finance 101: College Abacus helps students figure out what schools they can afford". Venturebeat.
  13. Greenberg, Molly (January 5, 2015). "6 of Forbes' '30 Under 30′ Education All-Stars Have DC-Area Ties". DC Inno.
  14. Chang, Lulu (December 20, 2015). "Abigail Seldin talks College Abacus and being a woman in tech". Digital Trends.
  15. Berman, Jillian (November 1, 2015). "The New Math of College Rankings". The Wall Street Journal.
  16. Stratford, Michael. "Biden admin taps Rich Cordray, former CFPB chief, to oversee federal student loans". POLITICO. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
  17. Robillard, Kevin; Klein, Rebecca (2021-03-03). "A Betsy DeVos Holdover Is Still In Charge Of America's Student Loans". HuffPost. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
  18. "The Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation organizes and funds precedent-setting public interest projects within the United States". Official website.
  19. Hoover, Eric (April 15, 2020). "Financial-Aid Appeals Are Mysterious. This Tool Was Built to Simplify Them". Chronicle.
  20. Wan, Tony (April 15, 2020). "Students Need More Financial Aid Than What They Applied for. A Free New Tool Can Help". Edsurge.
  21. Lieber, Ron (2020-04-25). "How to Ask a College for More Financial Aid". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-27.
  22. Staff, By Fast Company (2021-05-04). "World Changing Ideas Awards 2021: Education Finalists and Honorable Mentions". Fast Company. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
  23. "A Sex Trafficking Operation or a School? | RealClearPolitics". www.realclearpolitics.com. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
  24. "Report Linking Institutions to Sex Trafficking Prompts Congressional Investigation | Inside Higher Ed". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
  25. "Massage schools linked to prostitution, fraud remain open". www.usatoday.com. July 7, 2021. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
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