You've probably seen GoFundMe pages for nonprofit, victims of tragedy or business ventures. Now, some students are turning to online crowd sourcing to pay for college.
Bryce Roberts, 18, was accepted to Alabama A&M University. He wants to study criminal justice, political science, and eventually go on to law school.
After his mother died in August 2015, Roberts thought he had no chance of affording college, even with scholarships and financial aid.
Roberts turned to GoFundMe, a crowd sourcing site, with a goal of raising $20,000 to pay for tuition, books and housing for college.
"The first step in my road to my passion is education," Roberts wrote on his GoFundMe. "College is so exspensive and as a first-time freshman student. The government will only give you so much in student loans."
Statistics from GoFundMe show that in 8,561 campaigns for college expenses were started in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana between 2014 and now. As a result of those campaigns, nearly $3 million were donated -- more than half of which came from Ohio campaigns.
Of those campaigns, most are for textbooks or studying abroad.
If you want to start a GoFundMe campaign, here are a few things to know:
- Campaigns are free to start
- However, 7.9 percent of every donation goes to GoFundMe
- There is no time limit (unless you set one)
- Money is sent via direct deposit
