$14M for Meadow, the team quietly fixing the broken business of college tuition

Series A funding will expand how they support institutional resilience and financial clarity for students.

NEW YORK, April 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- At a time when colleges and universities are navigating historic financial pressure and growing regulatory uncertainty, Meadow helps institutions modernize how they communicate costs, collect tuition, and support students through every stage of their financial journey. With their college and university partner list growing rapidly in the last year, their platform now includes three integrated solutions that improve institutional financial health and simplify the student financial experience from application through graduation.

"Higher education is at an inflection point," said Alfredo I. Brillembourg, CEO and co-founder of Meadow. "Colleges must clearly communicate costs, offer flexible payment options, and reliably collect tuition — or risk losing trust, enrollment, and revenue. Meadow is here to help them do that with clarity and compassion."

Today, 59% of students consider dropping out due to financial stress. Meadow believes it can reverse this trend by partnering with institutions to improve price transparency and modernize the entire student financial experience. By giving students a clear understanding of what they'll pay and providing tools to manage tuition over time, Meadow helps them to stop stressing about finances and instead plan for the future. Its platform includes:

• Meadow Price: An advanced Net Price Calculator that delivers personalized estimates of the true cost of college after aid. The tool has delivered nearly 1 million estimates to students, revealing an average cost that's 40%+ less than the sticker price.
  
  
• Meadow Pay: A mobile-first, integrated billing and payments solution that combines personalized communications, clear digital bills, and flexible payment plans — increasing on-time payments, improving the financial experience for families, and increasing cash flow for institutions.
  
  
• Meadow Pre: A student accounts receivable solution that helps schools recover past-due balances through scalable, personalized outreach and no-barrier payments, reducing reliance on collections and supporting re-enrollment.

Meadow now partners with over 170 colleges and universities of all sizes across the U.S., including Gonzaga University, UC San Diego, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Penn State.

"Meadow helps us improve the student experience and maintain institutional financial health," said Ryan Thoroman, Bursar at Salt Lake Community College. "We view them not just as a technology provider, but as a strategic partner."

As tuition and fees remain the primary revenue source for most institutions, Student Financial Services offices are being asked to manage increasingly complex funding models — often with caseloads of over 1,000 students per staff member. Meanwhile, students face a fragmented system that often leads to confusion, stress, and stop-outs.

"The student financial experience is one of the most overlooked and broken systems in higher ed," said Matt Brown, Partner at Matrix Partners. "With over $500 billion spent annually on tuition and education-related expenses, it's astonishing how confusing the process remains and yet it drives institutional financial health. Meadow's rapid growth shows just how urgent the need is for better solutions."

Meadow is building a new standard for student financial services — one that improves enrollment, retention, and payment outcomes while helping institutions operate more sustainably.

"This funding helps us address higher education's most pressing financial challenges more effectively and pursue our core mission of strengthening economic mobility through higher education," said Amy Jenkins, COO and co-founder. "Through our partnerships, we are helping more students see a college degree as an attainable achievement and keeping them enrolled. We are laying the foundation to become the trusted financial platform students rely on throughout college and beyond."

The $14 million Series A will fuel the expansion of their student financial services platform for colleges and universities. Led by Matrix Partners, with participation from existing backers including Susa Ventures, Giant Ventures, Treble Capital, and GoGlobal Ventures, this round brings Meadow's total funding to over $20M.     

About Meadow

Meadow powers modern student financial services for universities that clarify and simplify the financial experience for students to improve economic mobility in the US through higher education.

At a time when consumer-friendly, digital-first experiences are more critical than ever in higher education, Meadow is solving many of the fundamental problems that lead to poor student financial experiences and administrative waste — radically transforming the higher education financial experience for everyone. Meadow's mission is to empower students financially and improve economic mobility through higher education. Through Meadow, universities and their students manage the end-to-end financial experience together, from application to graduation.

The company was founded in 2021 by recent graduates from Columbia University as well as second-time founders who have worked at AmEx, Klarna, Outschool and Amazon.

www.meadowfi.com

SOURCE Meadow