Ex-Google executive's new venture helps students avoid corporate life

<i>The backers - acquaintances, alumni or other accredited investors - provide funding that will typically range between $20,000 and $50,000 in exchange for an agreed share of the graduate's future income over a 10-year period.</i><p>Well, I am skeptical, but also glad someone decided to try it out - the chances are slim, but this is so unusual some unexpected good may yet come out of it.

At first this sounds a little like indentured servitude. That too, solved some problems of its time. A little weird though, the concept.

"The backers - acquaintances, alumni or other accredited investors - provide funding that will typically range between $20,000 and $50,000 in exchange for an agreed share of the graduate's future income over a 10-year period. Upstart determines the portion of future annual income to be shared based on the total sum raised and the person's qualifications, including academic record and field of study."<p>I'm failing to see how this is any different than a loan, with the exception you can pay a loan back early AND you know how much you owe the lender. This just seems like for $100k (based on the 5 backers at the minimum $20k that is quoted above) you could be paying many times that for success that is unrelated to the money that you received.

There's an interesting Quora discussion on the legality, logistics and mechanisms behind "human shares": <a href="http://www.quora.com/Can-you-buy-human-shares" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Can-you-buy-human-shares</a>

Since when were college graduates "students"?

Are the "upstarts" personally liable for the funding if they can't pay it back?

<i>Girouard noted the funding is different than a loan because there is no guarantee of repayment.</i><p>That's how loans are supposed to work.