Abigail Seldin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abigail Seldin
Born
Abigail Pamela Seldin
NationalityAmerican
OccupationCEO & Co-Founder,
Years active2008–present
Known forCo-founder of and
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 2012)​
WebsiteProfile

Abigail Pamela Seldin (born January 1988) is an American 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 , a free financial aid tool for students.[2]

Early life and education[]

Seldin was born in January 1988 to Judith Seldin-Cohen and David Seldin.[3] She attended Phillips Academy,[4][5] followed by the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 2009 with a BA and MS degree in anthropology.[6] While in college, ahwco-curated a gallery exhibition, Fulfilling a Prophecy: The Past and Present of the Lenape in Pennsylvania, at the Penn Museum.[4][7]

In 2008, Seldin was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship[8] to attend Oxford University,[9] where she pursued a DPhil in social anthropology.[3] She completed a fellowship in cultural heritage tourism at Hong Kong Tourism Board as a Henry Luce Scholar.[10] In 2015, she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Education category.[11][1]


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 American colleges and universities.[12][9] She served as CEO until it was acquired by ECMC Group in 214, a student loan collection agency.[1] After the acquisition, she 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]

In 2019, she co-founded the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation, a charitable organization [16] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Foundation created a no-cost online service called SwiftStudent, to help students submit a financial aid appeal to their institution's aid office.[17][18][19] SwiftStudent was named a finalist in Fast Company's World Changing Ideas Awards.[20] 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.[21] The report on sex trafficking and federal financial aid, which studied 18 institutions in five states,[22] was cited as a rationale for an investigation by the United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform in summer 2021.[23]

Personal life[]

Seldin met fellow Rhodes Scholar Whitney Haring-Smith in 2009 and they married in Florida in 2012.[3]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c Lieber, Ron. "Comparing College Costs the easy way". The New York Times.
  2. ^ a b 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. ^ a b c "Abigail Seldin and Whitney Haring-Smith". The New York Times. May 27, 2012.
  4. ^ a b Snyder, Susan (November 25, 2008). "Penn scholar's road to a Rhodes scholarship". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
  5. ^ Malinda Stafford Blustain (2018). Glory, Trouble, and Renaissance at the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology. ISBN 9781496205414.
  6. ^ "Abigail Seldin - Founder of College Abacus". HuffPost.
  7. ^ Hurdle, John (December 1, 2008). "Exhibition shows how native American tribe survived". Reuters.
  8. ^ "TARS 2019" (PDF).
  9. ^ a b Maffeo, Lauren (November 6, 2014). "Why I turned down Silicon Valley for Washington, DC". The Next Web.
  10. ^ Zweifler, Seth (November 6, 2014). "Two graduates selected as Luce Scholars". The Daily Pennsylvanian.
  11. ^ "2015: 30 under 30 - Education". Forbes. Archived from the original on January 9, 2015.
  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. ^ "The Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation organizes and funds public interest projects within the United States". Official website.
  17. ^ Hoover, Eric (April 15, 2020). "Financial-Aid Appeals Are Mysterious. This Tool Was Built to Simplify Them". Chronicle of Higher Education.
  18. ^ Wan, Tony (April 15, 2020). "Students Need More Financial Aid Than What They Applied for. A Free New Tool Can Help". Edsurge.
  19. ^ 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.
  20. ^ Staff, By Fast Company (2021-05-04). "World Changing Ideas Awards 2021: Education Finalists and Honorable Mentions". Fast Company. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
  21. ^ "A Sex Trafficking Operation or a School? | RealClearPolitics". www.realclearpolitics.com. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
  22. ^ "Report Linking Institutions to Sex Trafficking Prompts Congressional Investigation | Inside Higher Ed". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
  23. ^ "Massage schools linked to prostitution, fraud remain open". www.usatoday.com. July 7, 2021. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
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