NextTier Education Platform Redefines How School Counselors, Students and Their Parents Navigate the College Planning, Search and Application Process

CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - Sep 20, 2016) - While a college education is the goal of more than 90 percent of high school students today, the unfortunate reality is that only about 48 percent of those students are able to successfully manage the complicated tasks required for postsecondary enrollment. NextTier Education Inc. is working to change that metric with a powerful new interactive platform that redefines how school counselors, students and their parents navigate the college planning, search and application process.

More than two years in the making, NextTier Education is a web- and mobile-based postsecondary readiness platform that delivers critical information on every two- and four-year college in the U.S. The first platform of its kind, NextTier provides each student with a comprehensive college application plan, including a detailed list of every school's required tasks, step-by-step guidance and deadlines for completing each task in the process. The NextTier platform enables real-time, active collaboration between students, educators and parents. NextTier's proprietary database also includes information on more than 20,000 scholarships and grants, and helps to successfully match students with the right financial support opportunities.

"The complexities of preparing and applying for college acceptance can easily bog down students, their parents and even school counselors who are often hampered by a 500:1 student-to-counselor ratio. We created NextTier to greatly simplify the process, deliver an easy-to-follow plan for each student and allow counselors to quickly track every student's progress and provide active coaching for maximum postsecondary acceptance," said Justin Shiffman, founder and CEO of NextTier Education. "We are focused on providing all the information needed for all parties involved; simplifying and managing the entire workflow; and providing centralized communication that allows students, educators and parents to stay informed and participate in the process.

Mr. Shiffman explained that NextTier enables school counselors to quickly view every student's list of deadlines and status in the application process, as well as communicate directly with individual students and groups via email and mobile texts to keep them engaged, motivated and on schedule.

"At the end of the day, NextTier is making it easier for more kids to successfully find the right academic fit and secure a higher education," he said.

A cloud-based platform, NextTier education requires no hardware or software investment by schools and there is minimal training for administrators and users.

Following a year of in-school trials with more than 100,000 students, NextTier Education is now being actively used by 10 school districts in 8 U.S. states. More than 80 percent of students using NextTier stated the platform is easy to use and helped them to better take ownership of the college planning and application process. The company is in discussion with multiple other school districts and expects to finalize additional agreements in the coming months.

About NextTier Education
Founded in 2014, Chicago-based Next Tier Education, Inc. is the first postsecondary readiness solution with user engagement as its top priority. NextTier helps students find the right-fit schools, navigate the process to plan and apply to schools, and identify ways to finance their investments. Additional information is available at www.nexttier.com or by calling 312.690.9996.