Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) is asking undergraduates to pay about $10 this upcoming election season for Ottawa-based scholarship service FundQi, but it’s not officially participating in that referendum.
Launched in 2015 by a former CUSA scholarships coordinator as “GradGrants,” the bursary-matching business changed its name to “ScholarPro” in 2017, then again in 2019 to the registered corporation called FundQi.
Despite being separate from the undergraduate students’ association, as president Lily Akagbosu told the Charlatan, FundQi aims to expand its business further by collecting optional levy fees through a referendum arranged by CUSA.
“Honestly, I know it’s kind of strange how it all intertwines. . . But we were partnered with CUSA, I had an office with CUSA, we were working together, and they were helping build the program from the ground up. They were great friends.” —Zuberi Attard, Founder of FundQi
If passed, students would pay an 88 per cent discounted fee of $9.99 per semester, indexed to inflation. FundQi’s clients normally pay $120 for services that include matching students with scholarships, bursaries, “occasional grants,” conference tickets, and paid internships, according to its webpage.
“More than a business, I’d like to think of us as a movement,” said FundQi founder and president Zuberi Attard, currently in his sixth year at Carleton, in an interview.
“It began as an idea for me to help some friends at first and expanded with word of mouth,” said Attard. “Then, I partnered with CUSA and it started to become its own entity.”
In 2017, Attard joined CUSA’s administration team as a scholarships coordinator. He maintained this role for a year, working out of CUSA’s office spaces while also managing “ScholarPro.”
During this time, Attard publicly listed his business’s office address to be the same as CUSA’s, which Akagbosu said was because “ScholarPro was listed as a CUSA service,” like the Womxn’s Centre, for example.
“It was less of a direct relationship with Zuberi, more of just the company and he sort of worked for the company,” she added. “He’s definitely separate from us now—really not affiliated with CUSA.”
But that listed address has not yet changed, even as he distanced the bursary-matching service from the association, under the new banner of FundQi last year.
“In fact, I met Zuberi in an entrepreneurship class we had together. . . And I introduced him to everyone else with his idea.” —Lily Akagbosu, CUSA President
Attard says that his “non-payrolled and volunteer” staff of coders, who have since automated his business, don’t need an address—“they like to work remotely.”
“Honestly, I know it’s kind of strange how it all intertwines,” said Attard. “But we were partnered with CUSA, I had an office with CUSA, we were working together, and they were helping build the program from the ground up. They were great friends.”
“So far, we’ve been able to help over 1,700 students,” said Attard of the service that boasts $524,000 in funding for its clients.
Out of those estimated 1,700 students, Attard said only 100 were charged a full fee for his services, which he says was somewhere between $50-70 at the time. That’s up to $7,000.
For the remaining 1,600, he says, CUSA subsidized payments for around 1,300 students for a sum of $9.99 per student. That’s the exact same figure being proposed in an upcoming referendum, which CUSA says it will not be officially campaigning for. The rest, Attard added, were either free of charge or have not yet paid.
But none of this estimated $13,000 in subsidized fees for “ScholarPro,” paid by CUSA as Attard claims, have been reflected in the association’s 2017-18, 2018-19 or 2019-20 budgets.
And despite this sum of around $20,000 from the number of clients he mentioned himself, Attard says his “revenue hasn’t been high enough to pay a lot of taxes. . . so we’ve been exempt from all that.”
“The revenue from this referendum might be considered sales, so we might have to pay taxes on that,” he said. “But we’re not sure.
“The government will only tax us if we keep all of that revenue. But if you keep spending on things, they’ll consider it an expense, and they won’t tax you on that.”
Akagbosu, who has also been one of FundQi’s clients, said she’s not sure if it was a business in 2017, but thinks it definitely is one now. “It did have a service charge then though, and continues to have one,” she added.
“In fact, I met Zuberi in an entrepreneurship class we had together,” she said. “And I introduced him to everyone else with his idea.”
Former CUSA president David Oladejo is also listed to have received $5,000 in a financial award from Hydro One through FundQi.
Attard plans to further automate his business and expand his services, should a referendum pass in FundQi’s favour.
Students can vote “yes” or “no” to pay FundQi’s optional levy fees after five days of campaigning on Jan. 29 and Jan. 30. The business will be reimbursed for half of its campaign spending if it does not exceed $400.
“I think without CUSA, we wouldn’t have been here,” said Attard. “They’ve done a terrific job.”
Featured image by Tim Austen.
