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MPOWER Financing Partners With the North American Association of Indian Students to Support Dependent Visa Students

15 Mar 2022 , 06:15 PM

Business Wire India

MPOWER Financing, a mission-driven fintech firm and the leading provider of education loans to promising international students, has partnered with the North American Association of Indian Students (NAAIS), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, to provide grants supporting dependent visa students in their efforts to pursue higher education and professional development.

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Dependent visa students, also called documented dreamers, immigrated legally as children accompanying their parents, who typically arrived in the U.S. on a long-term visa. But at age 21, these children lose their dependent status, are no longer eligible to stay in the U.S. under their parents’ visas. Many choose to stay in the U.S. through an F-1 student visa while attending college. According to the American Immigration Council, there are more than 200,000 dependent visa students in the U.S., primarily from India and China.

Recipients of the MPOWER and NAAIS grant must be in the U.S. on an F-1 student visa and can use grant funds for a variety of educational and professional development expenses. The Hidden Dream, a community organization for dependent visa students, will perform outreach and administration of the grant.

“Since our founding, MPOWER has been on the forefront of financing education for high-promise students. We are the only lender to international and DACA students without a U.S. cosigner or collateral, and we firmly believe dependent visa students deserve access to higher education,” said Manu Smadja, CEO and Co-Founder of MPOWER Financing. “This strategic partnership with NAAIS allows us to better serve these students, helping them realize their full academic and career potential.”

“Dependent visa students are a strong but vulnerable segment of the Indian-American community facing a long or nonexistent path to permanent residency, which impedes their education, upward mobility and future in the United States,” said Sudhanshu Kaushik, Executive Director of NAAIS. “Thanks to MPOWER’s proprietary algorithm and proven track record in nontraditional lending, this partnership puts us in a better position to build new paths to success for dependent visa students.”

About MPOWER Financing

MPOWER Financing, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and with employees worldwide, is a mission-driven fintech company and the leading provider of global education loans. It is the only student lender worldwide that uses a proprietary algorithm to analyze overseas and domestic credit data as well as future earning potential to serve promising international and DACA students. MPOWER works with nearly 400 top universities across the U.S. and Canada to provide financing to students from over 200 countries. The MPOWER team consists heavily of former international students and provides students with personal financial education and career support to prepare for life after school.

MPOWER was named one of the best places to work, one of the best tech workplaces for diversity, and one of American Banker’s top fintech firms to work for four years in a row. MPOWER is backed by Tilden Park Capital Management, King Street Capital Management, ETS Strategic Capital, Drakes Landing Associates, Pennington Alternative Income Management, Zephyr Peacock, Breega, Potencia Ventures, Goal Solutions, Gray Matters Capital, Cometa, AI8, DreamIt, 1776, Village Capital, Fresco, K Street, and University Ventures.

About the North American Association of Indian Students

The North American Association of Indian Students (NAAIS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was founded in 2020. The organization’s mission is to identify, educate, and mobilize students of Indian origin to foster a thriving community. As a nonpartisan umbrella organization, NAAIS seeks to represent the 800,000+ students of Indian origin studying in the United States and Canada with the aim of giving them a unified voice. For more information, please visit https://naais.org/.