How many students could realistically apply to Frontier?
Three steps, each narrowing the pool. Start with geography to set the annual graduate base. Apply subject-area filters to find the technically capable pool. Then a series of considerations to arrive at a realistic number of applications for Frontier.
Step 1 — Geography: select target counties
✓
Baltimore City
72% grad rate · Hub location
FIT's physical hub. Highest economic disadvantage of the four counties — the price point is most powerful here. Strong Catholic and independent school sector (Loyola Blakefield, Maryvale, Archbishop Spalding). Primary channel: examination and technical high schools.
4,240
✓
Baltimore County
86% grad rate · Largest pool
Most populous of the four counties and the largest graduate pool. Economically diverse — ranges from affluent Towson and Catonsville to lower-income areas in the east. Home to UMBC, which has a strong CS and engineering culture that shapes the surrounding school ecosystem.
10,080
✓
Howard County
93% grad rate · Highest STEM density
One of the wealthiest counties in the US with a high concentration of federal contractors, NSA, and defense-sector professionals. Students here are academically strong but may feel squeezed between full-ride schools and mediocre state options — the most likely source of the deliberate, high-agency opt-out archetype.
6,865
✓
Anne Arundel
Conditional — 45 min commute friction. Not Year 1.
Sizeable graduate pool but significant commute friction to the Baltimore City hub. Lower tech density than Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Howard County. Include for reference; deprioritise for Year 1 outreach.
5,540
Graduate figures: MSDE 2023-24 public school enrollment x county graduation rates, plus an estimated 46% private school supplement (Maryland has 46 private school HS enrolments per 100 public — 5th highest in the US, per NCES 2023). Private school figures are estimates; county-level private enrolment data is not published by MSDE.
21,185
high school students graduate each year across selected counties
Step 2 — Subject interest: three lenses on the technically capable pool
No single data source cleanly identifies students with builder instinct. These three approaches each use the lower bound of their respective estimates to give a conservative view of the technically capable pool.
CTE subject participation
Upper bound — broadest proxy
~24% of graduates
Maryland statewide CTE participant data. IT cluster accounts for 23.5% of all secondary students. A student who took one IT elective counts the same as someone who has been building for years — so this significantly overcounts genuine interest. Treat as a ceiling.
Source: MD 2023-24 Secondary CTE Participants · IT = 23.5% of all students
Computer science course enrolment
National lower bound figure
~6.4% of graduates
Nationally, 6.4% of high school students take a foundational CS course (Code.org 2024). Maryland is likely above this — the state mandated all high schools offer CS — but 6.4% is the conservative floor. Does not capture self-taught builders who never enrolled in a formal CS class.
Source: Code.org State of CS Education 2024 · National figure used as lower bound
College major intention
Students heading into FIT-adjacent subjects
~10% of graduates
62% of graduates go to college. Of those, ~25% choose CS, engineering, maths, or business (NCES 2023). Using the lower bound — CS, engineering, and maths only, excluding business — gives roughly 16% of college-goers, or ~10% of all graduates who would traditionally study technically adjacent subjects.
Source: NCES Condition of Education 2023 · CS ~5%, engineering ~6%, maths ~3% of bachelor's degrees
Technically capable pool
~2,100
10% of 21,185 graduates · range 5–15%
Three lenses converge on a 6–10% range using conservative estimates. The 5–15% range accounts for county variation — 5% Baltimore City, up to 15% Howard County. This measures technical capability, not likelihood of choosing FIT.
Step 3 — Realistic applications: filters that shape the consideration pool
Of the technically capable pool (~2,100), several filters reduce who would genuinely consider FIT. Each removes a share of the pool — what remains is the realistic consideration set.
Filters that remove students from the pool
Wants a campus experience
Large
The biggest single filter. Many students — and their parents — associate higher education with social development, sports, dorms, and community. FIT doesn’t offer this and doesn’t pretend to.
Wants a specific traditional degree
Large
Students set on mechanical engineering, medicine, architecture, or law — fields with licensure requirements or narrow pipelines — will correctly identify FIT’s SE and DS majors as not the right fit.
Prestigious alternatives
Moderate
High-capability students who get into Ivies, MIT, Stanford, or strong LACs have a compelling alternative with strong social proof. Particularly relevant in Howard County where academic performance is high.
Trust and unfamiliarity
Moderate
A new institution with no alumni network and no track record. Even students who like the idea will hesitate without social proof. This filter shrinks significantly by Year 3 as graduate outcomes become visible.
Family expectation
Moderate
Particularly strong in first-generation families where a traditional degree carries significant social meaning. Even a motivated student may not be able to choose FIT without parental support.
Awareness
Year 1 constraint
A student can’t choose FIT if they’ve never heard of it. In Year 1, targeted school outreach reaches an estimated 30% of the consideration pool. This grows every year as brand builds.
After all filters
~10%
of technically capable pool
Realistic applications
~210
students per year
Upper limit: ~2,100 technically capable students
All rates are working assumptions — not published data. Consideration rate will grow as trust, brand recognition, and graduate outcomes accumulate.
What problems do they have with current options?
Problems we solve
Foregone income
A four-year degree requires four years of not earning. For students who need to contribute financially, this is a structural barrier.
Output mismatch
Traditional degrees produce transcripts. The market rewards portfolios. Capable students who are already building can see this gap — and can’t find a degree that meets them where they are.
“The project is done, it’s done. You put it in a folder and throw it away. If you can push it into the real world, that’s more of an incentive to keep pushing forward.”
— Stevens CompEng undergrad (Interview 14)
Tuition costs often result in high debt
The average US student graduates with ~$37K in student loan debt from tuition fees alone. For most students without a full scholarship, a four-year degree means starting adult life already behind.
“Hopkins is $120k for four years — and that’s with my dad’s employee discount.”
— Beckett, Poly junior (Interview 5)
The cost of campus infrastructure
Housing, meal plans, and campus fees are where traditional education monetises its model. Students who don’t need that infrastructure pay for it anyway.
Structural inflexibility
Fixed timetables and mandatory relocation exclude students with jobs, care responsibilities, or other commitments — regardless of their capability.
“If I had a more flexible lifestyle — I have all these friends in Russia I make pizza with. I could go there and I could do this.”
— UMD CS+Violin double major (Interview 14)
The social default is university
Students who want something different have to actively justify that choice to parents, teachers, and future employers — without a clear alternative they can point to.
“My parents would have let me otherwise. But it’s an important thing in my family — you have to go to university.”
— Ella, UMD freshman (Interview 10)
Lacking talent density
In a large university cohort of hundreds, a builder might find two or three people who think like them. The peer group that actually shapes you — the people who push you, collaborate with you, and hold you to a standard — is hard to find at scale. FIT is built entirely of those people.
“Being in a business school means you go to school with future entrepreneurs, future CEOs — future basically everything.”
— Carlos, Poly junior (Interview 5)
Future problems to solve
Brain drain from mid-tier cities
Talented students leave Baltimore for college and rarely return. A city-rooted FIT keeps builders inside the ecosystem that needs them.
Not a focus
Social and welfare problems
Poverty, housing instability, and mental health crises require wraparound support FIT is not designed to provide.
Escape from home environment
For students who need distance from a difficult home environment or are looking for new role models, residential university genuinely delivers something FIT does not. This is a real reason to choose elsewhere.
What is Frontier’s solution and why do they care?
Now
Accredited 3-year degree
A fully accredited US university degree completed in three years — without putting your life on pause or taking on significant debt.
Friction“Back in India, we do mostly four years — that was the concern.” — Naveen, founder (Interview 3)
$200 a month. Debt-free.
~$7,200 in tuition fees for the full three-year degree. For students without a scholarship offer, this changes everything.
Friction“That makes it more sketchy. Like, you might not have credibility even if it’s a really good program.” — UMD freshman (Interview 10)
Earn while you learn
Work on your own venture through the Frontier Venture Studio — built into the degree, not a side project. Real output, real income, a public portfolio before you graduate.
Lands“If you can push it into the real world, that’s more of an incentive to keep pushing forward.” — Stevens CompEng (Interview 14)
Live at home
Meet a new peer group in your city while managing costs by living at home. Not for everyone — but for students already rooted in their city, FIT is built around that.
Friction“A reason I didn’t stay local is because of the growth I get just being outside of my comfort zone.” — Ella, UMD freshman (Interview 10)
Cohort of builders
Selected on what you’ve built, not your grades or test scores. Every student has shipped something real. You’re no longer the only one in the room who thinks this way.
Lands“Being in a business school means you go to school with future entrepreneurs — future basically everything.” — Carlos, Poly junior (Interview 5)
Arrive with credit
Work completed through partner clubs and programmes counts towards your degree. You don’t start from zero.
Lands“Oh, interesting. Maybe if you win a hackathon you get a ton of credits. That’s a good idea.” — Gabe, Yorktown High (Interview 6)
Global immersion
Immersive experiences in Taiwan’s hardware ecosystem and Rwanda’s emerging tech sector. Different markets, different problems, different scale — the kind of exposure that reshapes how you build.
FrictionListed as features (“Taiwan / Rwanda”) drew zero engagement across interviews. Narrative versions (Marcus’s ad-lib “a month in the wilderness, a month in Italy”) landed.
Industry partnerships for real work
An industry partnership that puts students onto real challenges with real companies from day one. Not simulated briefs — actual problems, actual stakes, and work you can talk about.
Lands“I know UMD — Capital One hires, Bloomberg hires, Intuit hires. In terms of jobs, I have something in place.” — Hyderabad master’s student (Interview 1) · but more named partners are wanted.
Future
Part of your city’s culture
Events with local companies, a city-based advisory board, and deep roots in the local tech and education ecosystem. FIT as a civic institution, not just a school.
Not a focus
Guaranteed job placement
FIT prepares students to create opportunities, not to be placed in them. Portfolio and reputation do the work a careers office would.
Campus social infrastructure
Sports teams, athletic facilities, Greek life, residential halls. Students who want a traditional campus experience will find it elsewhere.
Wraparound social services
A large mental health, counselling, or student welfare division. FIT is a high-agency environment — students who need significant institutional support are better served elsewhere.
Escape from home environment
For students who need distance from a difficult home situation or are looking for new role models through residential living, traditional university genuinely delivers something FIT does not. This is a real reason to choose elsewhere.
How each persona reads this
Young founder
Lands: Venture Studio, earn while you learn, arrive with credit, $200/month. The cost proposition is genuinely compelling — they understand the ROI problem with traditional degrees better than anyone. Part of your city’s culture (Future) also resonates.
Doesn't land: Live at home — neutral. Global immersion — too far ahead. No guaranteed job placement is actually a positive signal for this persona.
Hard sell: Cohort quality. They've been in rooms with people who call themselves builders and aren't. They need proof, not a claim. $200/month may also trigger price-as-prestige scepticism — is it that cheap because it’s not that good?
Club Competitor
Lands: Cohort of builders, Sand Centre, arrive with credit, global immersion. Credibility signals matter most. No campus social infrastructure (Not a Focus) is a genuine negative.
Doesn't land: $200/month may actively work against FIT here. If this student has a scholarship offer — partial or full — the price comparison changes completely. A full ride to a state school is cheaper. The pitch must lead with the model, not the price.
Hard sell: Employer and grad school recognition. And the price-as-prestige problem is real — $200/month needs to be justified by visible cohort quality, not just stated.
Digital Native
Lands: GitHub commits, side projects, open-source contributions — FIT is the first institution that counts these. Arrive with credit validates what they’ve already built online. Cohort of builders means people who actually ship, not group-project passengers.
Doesn't land: Global immersion and Sand Centre require showing up in person — the thing this persona is least comfortable with. Live at home is fine but irrelevant; they live online regardless of where they sleep. No campus social infrastructure is actually a neutral-to-positive.
Hard sell: The in-person parts. FIT has real-world components — cohort sessions, industry partnerships, immersive experiences. This persona needs to see that FIT values what they build online while offering a reason to step into rooms they’d normally avoid. The stretch is the sell, not the obstacle.
Neighborhood Builder
Lands: $200/month is the headline — this is the persona for whom every other option is priced out. Earn while you learn is non-negotiable, not a perk. Arrive with credit validates self-taught work. Live at home is a genuine positive — leaving isn’t an option.
Doesn't land: Global immersion feels abstract and distant. Sand Centre is unfamiliar territory. No campus social infrastructure means no built-in community — they’ll need to see that cohort replaces campus.
Hard sell: Institutional trust. Every system they’ve encountered has either ignored them or failed them. FIT needs to show up where they are, not ask them to come to FIT. Peer voice is everything.
Who else is in the market and how do we defend?
Current competition
Traditional universities
Slow incumbents with centuries of brand trust. Many students will still prefer the campus route — and for some (escape from home, campus social life) they genuinely should. FIT doesn't need to beat universities; it needs to be the obvious choice for the students universities aren't serving well.
Community colleges
Free or very low cost, locally accessible, and often respected by employers. A genuine competitor for cost-sensitive students. FIT's answer is the model, not the price — cohort quality, venture studio, global immersion, and an accredited degree are not things community colleges offer.
Apprenticeships & work directly
Students can earn $20+/hr at Amazon, Google, or a local employer without a degree. For the talented rebel especially, this is a real alternative. FIT's answer is earn while you learn — and an accredited degree at the end of it.
Emerging competition
Edtech startups
National, hyped, going city by city to build relationships and credibility. The gap to close: don't leave space for edtech to fill what FIT doesn't. Venture studio, big names on the advisory board, digital community, and visible outcomes are what prevent edtech from eating the market FIT is building.
WatchProspects independently reached for DeVry as the cautionary anti-pattern (“box-ticking degree”) and Marcus Brownlee’s relationship with Stevens as the credibility-by-creator template. Both are signals about what edtech does and doesn’t do well.
Not a focus
YouTube / Skool & content creators
Personality-led influencers selling content courses. These aren't accredited degrees — and the students FIT is targeting know the difference. Not a direct competitor; not worth engaging with as one.
How are we going to make them aware and build trust in Frontier?
Now
School-based outreach
Target 5–6 examination and technical schools in Baltimore City, 3–4 in Howard County. Contact could be the college counsellor or STEM/AP coordinator — whoever has the closest relationship with the right students.
Local code schools & STEM programmes
Offer credit recognition for existing summer programmes and co-design outreach curricula. Students arrive with a head start, introduced by someone they already trust.
Hack Club / MLH / Discord / Reddit / X
One post, self-selecting. Surfaces students school channels miss entirely. Low activation cost — worth doing immediately.
Makerspaces & events
Baltimore Hackerspace, hackUMBC, Battle O’ Baltimore, FIRST Robotics. Reach builders in the spaces they already inhabit. Pipeline and signal-testing in one.
Future
Word of mouth
The most powerful long-term channel. A founding student saying "this is real" to someone who looks like them carries more credibility than any outreach FIT can do directly.
Local & national PR
Baltimore Sun, Technical.ly, and national education press. A story about a credible alternative to the traditional degree — founded by a Stanford team, partnered with Anthropic — is genuinely newsworthy. Strongest once founding cohort outcomes are visible.
Pre-selected non-traditional networks
Homeschool networks (HSLDA, debate leagues), online-high-school alumni (Stanford OHS, K12.com), GED returners, YC Startup School applicants. They’ve already opted out of the residential-college narrative — FIT doesn’t have to convert them away from it.
From research“Start with online high school people or homeschool people — you can build critical mass more easily than just high school grads.” — Bitcamp organiser (Interview 13)
Not a focus
Community orgs — YMCA, Boys & Girls Clubs
High relationship cost. Hold until Frontier Foundations is operational — that is the right vehicle for this population.
Paid online advertising
The students FIT is targeting are sceptical of institutions by nature. A paid ad reads as desperation, not selectivity. Reach should be earned, not bought.
Viral video campaigns
Optimised for reach, not quality. One well-placed post in Hack Club Slack reaches more of the right people than a video with a million views.
Your venture can be your degree. You don’t have to choose.
Club Competitor
School-based outreach — counsellor, CTE coordinator & AP CS teacher
The cohort is as strong as anywhere. Every student has shipped something real.
Digital Native
Code schools, makerspaces, word of mouth (Year 2+)
Your GitHub is your transcript. FIT is the first institution that reads it.
Neighborhood Builder
Community organisations, churches, workforce programmes, local social media, peer referral
You taught yourself. FIT is built for people like you. The door is open.
Indian global student
Diaspora-to-homeland social media, study-abroad aggregators (Yocket, Shiksha), tier-2 city university fairs
A US degree without the visa, the loan, or the move. Same credential. Stay where you are.
Who are we targeting?
Core archetype
High school students who are already building and don’t want to put their life on pause to get a degree. They learn by doing, not by sitting in lectures.
Now
Young founder
Already running something — a product, small business, or side project. Not waiting for permission. More likely to be self-taught than formally trained. Sceptical of traditional degrees because they can see the ROI problem clearly.
“The thought of doing a gap year has passed on me. It’d be really nice to have a year to see how far I could stretch.”
— Gabe, Yorktown High junior, top-tier CS applicant (Interview 6)
Where found
Howard and Baltimore County. Skews private school. Active on X and startup communities more than school networks.
Channel
Hack Club, MLH, X/Twitter. More likely to find FIT themselves than be nominated by a counsellor.
Club Competitor
Hackathon regulars, robotics captains, app challenge finalists. Has a track record of shipped output and public validation. Likely college-bound but open to something better if the peer quality is credible.
“Being in a business school means you go to school with future entrepreneurs, future CEOs, future basically everything.”
Examination schools (Poly, City College, Western) and strong STEM schools across all three counties. Both public and private.
Channel
School counsellor and CTE coordinator nomination. National partners — MLH, Hack Club, Congressional App Challenge. Highest-yield outreach target.
Digital Native
Lives online — GitHub repos, Discord servers, Reddit threads. More comfortable behind a screen than in a room. Invisible to schools but visible to anyone who knows where to look.
“If I had a more flexible lifestyle — I have all these friends in Russia I make pizza with. I could go there and I could do this. It would still engage me the same way.”
Hack Club, Discord, Reddit, GitHub, X/Twitter. More likely to find FIT through content than outreach.
Neighborhood Builder
Self-taught on a phone and a hand-me-down laptop. Traditional college was never a real option; community college feels like settling. Waiting for a door that was actually open.
“I would choose this over college if college didn’t work. It’s cheaper. I can access that. I won’t have to pay back college aid.”
Baltimore City neighbourhoods, community centres, libraries, public housing. Not visible through school STEM pipelines. Found through community organisations and word of mouth.
Channel
Community organisations, churches, workforce development programmes, local social media. Peer referral is the strongest channel — trust comes from people, not institutions.
Indian global student
High schooler in India weighing the US-residence bet — and watching the math get worse for the cohort just ahead of them (visa uncertainty, ~$200k tuition, shrinking OPT). FIT delivers the same accredited US degree without requiring relocation. Reads as international signal on Indian resumes; the global cohort and immersions replace what residency used to buy.
“If I just wanted to have the international face in my degrees, then maybe. You can always put certificates on your resume which can improve your chances.”
— Indian international UMD undergrad, paid ~$200k for the US bet (Interview 8)
Where found
Across India — strongest in tier-2 cities (Hyderabad, Pune, Coimbatore) where US-degree aspiration meets cost ceilings. Sits below the IIT / NIT tier; competes with second-tier US masters and Indian private engineering colleges.
Channel
Diaspora-to-homeland social media (current US-based Indian students as content producers). Study-abroad aggregators (Yocket, Shiksha, LeverageEdu). University fairs in tier-2 cities. Stronger as US visa policy tightens.
Future
Creative technologist
Creatives with a strong maker instinct — musicians, filmmakers, visual artists who are building, not just consuming tools. The output is the proof: a music production pipeline, a short film with custom visual effects, a zine with a digital distribution system. Creativity is the signal; the medium is secondary.
Where found
Arts magnet schools and Baltimore City more than suburban counties. Underrepresented in STEM pipelines but visible through creative portfolios and competitions.
Channel
Arts school counsellors, makerspaces, creative communities online. Stronger fit as FIT’s programme range grows.
Arts student seeking a dual degree
Existing college students enrolled in arts programmes who are questioning the value of their current degree as the creative industries face disruption. Interested in adding technical credentials without starting over. FIT’s flexible model and low monthly cost makes a dual-track viable in a way a second traditional degree isn’t.
Where found
MICA, Towson, community college arts programmes across the region. Likely to self-identify once FIT’s brand is visible in creative communities.
Channel
Not a Year 1 outreach priority. Worth watching as arts degree scepticism grows and FIT’s reputation builds.
Not a focus
Unmotivated students
FIT assumes drive that is already present — regardless of background. The filter is motivation, not where someone comes from. FIT is designed to democratise access to high-quality technical education, but the entry point is a student who is already building.
Each insight pairs the research finding with the actions we should take. Open any insight to see the supporting quotes and full so-what reasoning alongside the actions.
Insight 01·Seen in 6 of 14
Frontier can’t compete with a coming-of-age campus — but can compete on community
The beautiful campus, the dorms, the sports, the sororities, the friends, the independence rehearsal, the family-legible identity — this is what most prospects are actually choosing between. FIT isn’t competing on any of that, and price can’t substitute for it. Instead, FIT uses its flexibility and technology to build a different kind of community, online and in-person.
▸ See evidence & actions
“College is the closest thing you can get from still having a safety net and being away from your parents than having a full-on job and fully supporting yourself.”
— Ella, UMD freshman (Interview 10)
“College, when you go to college the first time, it’s like a culture thing. You meet a lot of friends. It’s growing. You’re bettering yourself.”
— Daniel, Poly junior (Interview 2)
“Between the ages of 18 and 21, those are a very formative experience. I made so many friends on this campus because I was a person.”
— Recent PM, post-graduate (Interview 12)
“A lot of our families see [college] as the way out, to success.”
— Poly teacher (Interview 4)
Actions
1.
Use best practices and technology to spark real friendships
Integrate tools like Boardy (AI community connector) so cohorts find peers across cities, projects, and interests. Borrow from the best community-building playbooks outside education — run clubs, creator collectives, YC-style demo days, maker spaces — where tech is the matchmaker, not the classroom.
2.
Lead the pitch with community and friendship
Don’t sell curriculum first. Frame FIT as the place you’ll make lifelong friends, build a real network, and find the people you’ll keep shipping with for years. Community and friendship should be the headline product — the degree is the structure around it.
Insight 02·Seen in 8 of 14
Price immediately subtracts credibility — need substance quickly to avoid being seen as a degree shop
$200/month triggers the scam signal before the value prop lands. Prospects don’t judge on price — they judge on faculty, course rigour, and advisors. Without visible substance, FIT reads as a degree shop. A three-year degree (vs a four-year) raises the same question by the same mechanism — efficiency reads as a shortcut unless actively defended.
▸ See evidence & actions
“I think I’ll probably make my decision on credibility based on other factors [apart from price] — the programs you offer, the faculty. I know it’s new, but if it wasn’t completely new, like reputation.”
— Gabe, Yorktown High junior, top-tier CS applicant (Interview 6)
“If it’s more expensive, people might perceive it as more credible. It’s kinda weird.”
— Xin Lan, UMD freshman (Interview 10)
“When you first did it, I thought this was gonna be a scam. But Hopkins is $120k for four years. Compared to $7,000, that’s an extreme gap.”
— Beckett, Poly junior, dad works at Hopkins (Interview 5)
“It is too little if it means I cannot reach my teacher. Some cheap online degrees, it is literally a thousand people per class. There is no way to talk to your teacher.”
— Bitcamp organiser (Interview 13)
Actions
1.
Own the pricing model
Say it out loud: “a world-class education doesn’t need to put you in debt.” Stop letting price do the work of scam-signalling and reframe it as the principled stance it is.
2.
Build legitimacy through selectivity, faculty, and rigour
Selective admissions, visible faculty and advisor quality, and a published bar for the work itself. These are what prospects actually judge on — and they’re what stops the programme from reading as an online degree shop.
3.
Consider revisiting the pricing model
Test a sticker price of $7–10k with 50% full scholarships — so the blended cost sits at $4–5k but the top-line number reads credible rather than cheap. The scholarship angle also opens a philanthropy channel: donors can sponsor specific scholars in their own city, making the model legible to both families and funders.
Insight 03·Seen in 8 of 14
Legitimacy is earned through alumni, faculty, advisors — and sounding rigorous and selective
Accreditation doesn’t carry legitimacy; people do. Prospects want named alumni, named faculty, named advisors, visible projects — and a programme that reads as rigorous and selective, not open-enrolment. Without these, FIT defaults to “online degree shop” in the prospect’s head.
▸ See evidence & actions
“You need to prove this idea by having exceptional alumni or insane speakers. Like Stanford’s CS153.”
— Hyderabad master’s student (Interview 1)
“Stevens has a lot of like YouTubers that have turned to… Marcus Brownlee was a graduate of Stevens and he’s like a very big 20,000,000 subscriber tech enthusiast. He has him come back every year for the graduation ceremony and Stevens likes to use him because he has a huge social outreach and he has a huge tech background as like the main source of ‘hey guys come to Stevens.’”
“I know UMD as a school, I’ve seen different pipelines. I know Capital One hires a lot. I know Bloomberg hires. I know Intuit hires. So, like, in terms of jobs, I have something in place.”
— Hyderabad master’s student, same interview — on employer pipelines as the load-bearing credibility proxy (Interview 1)
“Reaching out to content creators over established professors isn’t a completely farfetched idea… those would encourage more people to come to university than a professor at Harvard, because nobody, if you think about Harvard, you don’t know all the names of the professors. You mostly just know the brand.”
Line up advisors and partners with name recognition students and parents can verify in five seconds — Stanford founders, industry leaders, recognisable brands. Publicise the Anthropic partnership prominently on the website. Credibility comes from the names, not the prose.
2.
YouTube mentors and guest “live lectures”
Work with creators who have built large social audiences to run guest sessions and mentorship blocks. Host live lectures from famous professors and operators, leveraging their audience as both credibility signal and recruitment channel.
3.
Signal rigour and selectivity
Publish acceptance rate, admissions criteria, prior-work bar. The programme should read as selective, not open-enrolment.
Insight 04·Seen in 5 of 14
Community hubs could improve learning experience and key metrics
What prospects actually want is connection — a reliable place to meet peers and feel part of a cohort. They aren’t asking for a beautiful campus, and FIT isn’t competing on that axis. The space can be borrowed — a partner org, a co-working floor, an existing student venue — as long as the people and cadence are real.
▸ See evidence & actions
“You have an actual physical space where you can see more of the gimmick to anyone who’s making a scam.”
— Beckett, Poly junior (Interview 5)
“Almost like a station in different cities — encourages students in Hoboken to go meet at the Baltimore terminal.”
“If you’re alone in your house doing courses online, that’s a whole different thing than doing courses online but also having that space where you can meet your peers. Otherwise it’s like you’re the only person at that college.”
— Poly junior (Interview 11)
“Being in a business school means you go to school with future entrepreneurs. If you don’t have those connections, you don’t know who to call up.”
— Carlos, Poly junior (Interview 5)
Actions
1.
Stand up community hubs in key cities, staged not centralised
Partner with spaces in priority cities first, then layer a staged model where students meet at public libraries, clubs, and community centres between hub days. Think co-working-vs-fully-remote: the hybrid cadence is the product. The community team owns scheduling the in-person days and keeping the rhythm.
2.
Test the model against near-hub vs far-from-hub cohorts
Track recruitment, completion rate, and satisfaction for students near community hubs vs those without local access. Use the gap to refine the staged model — where hubs should go next, which partner formats work, and which student segments need more vs less in-person support.
Insight 05·Seen in 4 of 14
Frontier’s remote model must still be a rigorous, world-class education
Prospects who went through pandemic distance learning have durable negative associations with online education. “Remote-first” quietly defaults to “Zoom school” or “University of Trump Northern Michigan online” in their heads unless actively distinguished.
▸ See evidence & actions
“Probably not. Because I myself am very in favor of in-person classes. Going through the whole, like, quarantine, I couldn’t really learn online as well as I do.”
— Poly junior (Interview 11)
“You have to get people that are still gonna be engaged the same way — because they go online and they fall asleep. It’s so easy to do that. The human aspect is twice as important because you’re online.”
— UMD CS + Violin double major (Interview 14)
“They were using it because they thought that, oh, professors don’t have to put that much effort in to this class because, no, it’s just English… even if they’re grown adults in a class online, that motivation is still important to get that engagement with whatever staff member or whatever that you have.”
— UMD CS + Violin double major, same interview — on professors treating online classes as low-effort (Interview 14)
“Like the University of Trump Northern Michigan online.”
— UMD CS undergraduate, on the caricature a new online degree evokes (Interview 9)
Actions
1.
Name the pandemic association in the pitch
“This is not lockdown school.” Say it out loud. Silence leaves the caricature in place.
2.
Design a world-class learning experience that can compete for the best students
Re-imagine remote learning from scratch, prototype it, and pressure-test against student feedback — using ALX’s playbook as a reference point. It can’t just be passive online lectures. The bar is a remote format good enough that top-tier students choose it over an in-person alternative.
Insight 06·Seen in 6 of 14
Families are the silent decision unit
The pitch addresses students; the decision is a household. Parents routinely named as the decisive voice.
▸ See evidence & actions
“There is pressure from my family to go more to a traditional [university].”
— Gabe, Yorktown High junior (Interview 6)
“My parents would freak out just because we haven’t seen [projects coming out of FIT]. If we could see, oh, they made a full business — then I’d be very inclined to say yes.”
— UMD freshman (Interview 10)
“My parents would have let me otherwise. But it’s an important thing in my family — you have to go to university.”
— Ella, UMD freshman (Interview 10)
“A lot of our families see [college] as the way out to success.”
— Poly teacher (Interview 4)
Actions
1.
Build a parent-facing pitch
The pitch currently addresses the student; the decision is a household. A parent-facing version is not optional.
Parents won’t sign off without it. Cohort-1 project galleries, named employer partners, and accreditation explainers are all doing the same job: reassuring the household.
Topic index · 27 speakers across 14 interviews · cross-corpus quote browser
Explore by topic
Pick a topic to see what prospects actually said across 27 speakers in 14 interviews — a two-to-three sentence cross-corpus summary, and the supporting quotes pulled from the transcript analyses.
The 14 interview sessions behind Insights and Actions and the Topic browser. Each card names who we spoke to, a short description of the group, and which persona they fit best.
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Interview 1
Hyderabad & Pune UMD master’s students
Post-grad critique of FIT’s credibility vs UMD — network density and employer pipelines named as the load-bearing proof of legitimacy.
Persona: Indian global student
Interview 2
Kaden & Daniel, Baltimore Polytechnic juniors
On-demographic high-schoolers. FIT reads as a fallback if college doesn’t work. Price isn’t the objection — the coming-of-age rite is.
Persona: Neighborhood Builder
Interview 3
Naveen, DC-based founder (post-IIT, Chicago master’s)
Already a founder evaluating whether FIT would have helped at 18. Frames FIT as startup-school for a specific builder segment.
Persona: Young Founder · Indian global student
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Interview 4
Baltimore Polytechnic teacher
Gatekeeper perspective. Identifies FIT as a need-based alternative; reminds us the household motivation for college is “the way out to success.”
Persona: Gatekeeper (meta)
Interview 5
Beckett, Divine, Carlos, Sofia — Poly juniors
Warmest reception of any group. Anchor price against Hopkins ($120k), read FIT as selective not need-based, Baltimore hub solves legitimacy.
Persona: Digital Native · Neighborhood Builder
Interview 6
Gabe, Yorktown High (Arlington, VA) junior
Top-tier CS applicant. Sees FIT as filling a niche “that doesn’t exist anymore.” Family pressure present; needs faculty accountability.
Persona: Club Competitor (elite-brand preference)
Interview 7
UMD mechanical engineering undergrad
Compares FIT against UMD. Values labs and hands-on equipment; anchors price against AWS certs rather than tuition.
Persona: Indian global student
Interview 8
Indian international UMD undergrad (Hyderabad – Delhi)
Evaluates FIT as an “international-face credential” for an Indian resume. Offshore-jobs thesis; visa-attrition as a positioning angle.
Persona: Indian global student
Interview 9
UMD CS & Economics undergraduates
Validate FIT’s thesis (90% of CS students want software dev, not theory). Skeptical on reputation, AI timeline, and credential inflation.
Persona: Club Competitor
Interview 10
Ella, Xin Lan, Nico + one — UMD CS freshmen
Price pushback ($2.5k/yr reads sketchy; $10–15k/yr reads credible). College experience framed as the safety-net independence window.
Persona: Club Competitor
Interview 11
Two Poly juniors (engineering + nursing)
Pandemic distance-learning trauma. Aesthetic decision-making (gardens, renovated buildings). Nursing major not offered by FIT — silent disqualifier.
Persona: Neighborhood Builder
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Interview 12
Product manager (recent grad) + senior developer
Adults post-college. Reject online bachelor’s (18–21 is the residential window) but interested in an online master’s for working professionals.
Persona: Post-undergrad (meta)
Interview 13
Bitcamp organiser + recent UMD graduate
Sharpest TAM segmentation of the corpus: young parents, GED returners, homeschool graduates, online-HS graduates — segments pre-selected for a remote model.
Two builders. First polymath/creative archetype we met. Direct yes if hubs and cities exist — remote works when project stakes are high.
Persona: Young Founder · Neighborhood Builder
How does Frontier become part of the city's fabric?
The fundamental challenge
Low-cost universities are very hard to make work
A low tuition model only works at massive scale — and in a competitive market with centuries of institutional tradition, that scale is very difficult to achieve. The economics don't work at small cohort sizes. In the short term, this is the core challenge. Over a 10-year period, as outcomes become visible and trust compounds, Frontier could become increasingly mainstream.
The numbers at Baltimore scale
Assuming 100 students in Baltimore — already 50% of the realistic application pool — student fees generate ~$240,000/year. That barely covers a general manager. It is not a viable standalone business at city level.
Three paths forward
Option A: Low-cost, fully remote, national model. No GM, no city infrastructure. Strip costs to the bone and pursue thousands of students across the US. Unit economics only work at real scale.
Option B: Alternative university — not low cost. Charge a price that reflects quality and prestige. Compete on cohort, outcomes, and brand rather than affordability.
Option C: The city partnership model. Undergrad as the beachhead, revenue from what that presence unlocks — workforce development, Sand Centre contracts, corporate philanthropy.
Frontier is pursuing Option C
The model
Embed deeply into the city's economic fabric — building brand, talent, and relationships until Frontier is part of the city's identity. Revenue is the outcome of that embedding, not a standalone commercial strategy. Undergrad is the lead arm that makes it possible.
Undergrad
Beachhead
Workforce development
B2B revenue
Sand Centre
Contracts & placements
Corporate philanthropy
CSR & goodwill
Revenue streams
Student fees
$200/month · ~$2,400/year · 50 students across DS & SE → ~$120K/year per city. Not the primary revenue driver — the beachhead that makes everything else possible.
Note: global immersions are not included in this fee and must be stated clearly in student-facing materials.
Workforce development
Companies pay Frontier to upskill their existing workers. Same curriculum, same faculty, different customer. High-margin once the undergrad cost base is in place — and a natural conversation once companies are already hiring FIT graduates.
Sand Centre — contracts & placements
Municipal and corporate AI projects delivered by FIT's student and graduate network. The win-win: the city gets an AI partner genuinely rooted in it — graduates who studied, worked, and stayed — not an external provider who arrives and leaves. That trust can't be replicated without the embeddedness that undergrad creates.
Corporate philanthropy
Companies that benefit from a stronger local talent pipeline — but won't pay directly for upskilling — contribute under their own name. It's CSR spend, not a procurement decision. They get naming association with something credible. City & state programmes (YouthWorks-style) add a further $2–3M per city target.
Operating costs
General manager & learning support
City-level operational lead covering relationships, student experience, local partnerships, and day-to-day learning support. Est. ~$150K all-in per hub.
Space
City likely provides the space at no cost. Frontier covers opex — maintenance, internet, furniture, utilities. To be modelled per hub.
Faculty & overhead
Mix of full-time faculty and part-time practitioners, plus a contribution to central costs — accreditation, technology, and central team. Key unknown — critical to model at 50 students per hub.
A week that changes how students think.
Frontier offers partner organisations a plug-in 5-session module that sits inside your existing programme. No restructuring required. Run it intensively across one week, or spread it as one session per week — whichever fits your schedule. You choose the track that fits your cohort, we provide the curriculum and train your facilitator — then a Frontier team member joins for one day to bring it to life.
Choose your track
5 sessions · Run intensive over one week or one day per week · Partner's choice
Track A
Technical Course
For cohorts who already have soft skills or leadership content covered. Students get genuine technical depth in a subject their existing curriculum likely doesn't reach.
For technically strong cohorts who need the range — how to lead, communicate, pitch, and operate. Based on ALX's proven Professional Foundations curriculum, condensed to five sessions.
05Demo Day — pitch, personal brand, elevator pitch, credential awarded
How it works
Frontier provides
Full curriculum package for the chosen track
Train-the-trainer session before the week starts
One in-person day from a Frontier team member
Frontier-branded certificate, digital badge, and skills transcript for every completer
Nomination pathway to Frontier's founding cohort for standout students
Partner provides
Nominated students — not open enrollment
A facilitator to deliver the daily sessions
Space and devices where possible
Light accountability and check-ins across the week
Co-hosting of the Demo Day session
The Frontier Day
On one day during the week, a Frontier GM joins the cohort in person. This isn't a pitch — it's a conversation. They talk about what Frontier is building, why this cohort of students is exactly who they're looking for, and what the path looks like. Students who are interested get a direct next step: a conversation, not a website. The best students leave knowing there's a door open.
What students leave with
Frontier Builder Foundations — Certificate
Every student who completes the week receives a Frontier-branded certificate, a verified digital badge with skills tags, and a skills transcript they can attach to a college application, LinkedIn, or fellowship application. Standout students receive a direct invitation to an admissions conversation with a Frontier team member — no cold application required.
Builder pipeline
Organisations and events across target cities — pulled live from the tracking sheet.
