Selling class notes the new way to make money in university

FLORIDA — Last February, Angel Card, a junior at Florida State University, saw a chalk advertisement written on a campus walkway that promised cash in exchange for class notes. She uploaded a study guide she’d written for a midterm in her Nationality, Race, and Ethnicity class to a website called Flashnotes (now called Luvo) and priced it at US$5 (S$7). 

“The first exam was a hit,” said Card. “Sixty-six students out of a class of 200 bought my study guide.” After Luvo took its 30 per cent cut, Card made US$178 from the guide. By the end of the semester, she’d added notes for two history classes and one macroeconomics class and earned about US$700.

Luvo, a Boston-based online marketplace for study materials and tutoring, has 118,000 registered users, said Mr Mike Matousek, the company’s 27-year-old founder. 

Sellers earn an average of US$400 per semester, he said. 

Many of the students who buy notes on the website are in large, impersonal lecture courses and are “just looking for something to stay afloat,” and they tend to seek help at the last minute: 1am is the most active time on the site, Mr Matousek said.

Luvo and sites like it say they’re a lifeline for students who aren’t getting enough extra help from their instructors, but some colleges have resisted letting them on campus. In 2010, California State University banned note-selling website NoteUtopia (the site has since been acquired by Luvo) and told students at all 23 of its campuses that note-selling could result in expulsion.

Some say using note-selling sites is akin to cheating. 

“Those who purchase notes online are short-circuiting the learning process that others have taken. This is not something we encourage,” said Mr Dennis Schnittker, a spokesman for Florida State, although he added that buying class notes from Luvo doesn’t violate university policy.

Mr Matousek launched Luvo in 2013 with US$14 million in venture funding from a group led by Atlas Venture. As a senior at Kent State University four years earlier, he’d made US$1,000 selling his friends US$10 outlines from his statistics course, which convinced him he could build a business on the demand for well-written, personalised notes.

Indeed, the online market for notes has grown in the past five years. Textbook rental company Chegg added a vertical called Chegg Study to its business in 2010 by acquiring note-selling services Cramster and Notehall, and companies like Course Hero and Nexus Notes offer services similar to Luvo's.

The service could be valuable for students who need last-minute help, said Dr Scott Shane a professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

“Everyone needs a tutor 24 hours before a major test, and it’s hard to find one on campus at 11pm the night before, when you’re starting to study,” Dr Shane said, but he warned that it may be difficult to verify how relevant class notes are. Card, the Florida State student, sells most of her guides on the morning of exams or the night before.

Colleges may warm up to online note-selling once they see students’ test scores improve, said Dr Louis Lataif, a dean emeritus of Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, who serves on Luvo’s board. Dr Lataif suggested there are educational benefits for note-sellers as well as buyers. “There is a lot of research that suggests that that information is retained longest when you’ve attempted to teach it,” he said.

Card said knowing that people depend on her for notes helps keep her on top of her own studies. Her grade-point average has jumped more than a point since she started selling her notes, she said.

Card has also bought notes, including a microeconomics study guide a peer was selling. “Without it, I probably would have failed,” she said, adding that the teachers of survey courses at large universities often aren’t able to offer individualised help. 

“Office hours are inconvenient. One hour a week to master these hard concepts just isn’t going to cut it.” BLOOMBERG