Introducing the Bursar Bulletin
A place where ambitious university bursars can learn about fintech, AI and technology and discuss how to apply it in their day-to-day.
The Age of the Bursar
Two years ago I rented a car and drove around Texas trying to find a University that wanted to use Fintech to help build a better way to handle 529 payments. I was intimidated - everyone I had spoken to told me that Higher Ed is insanely hard to break into and no one will want to talk with me.
What I found was the exact opposite; I found bursars and people in student accounts that simply cared. They cared about their jobs, they cared about their students and above all else they really cared about how they could get involved and learn about new stuff that could help them help others. Since then, I have met countless leaders and operators in universities that only reinforce all that for me - and we have worked together to build payments and software tech that has transformed how our partners ingest 529, outside scholarship and third party payments.
What has also been reinforced is that there isn’t good/regular access to interesting and applicable resources for those wanting to level up. In fact, I hear more and more about how resources are being taken away, conference budgets are decreasing and learning opportunities are going away with them. It also means that there is less opportunity to interact within the bursar community; share wins, discuss ideas, learn together.
This is where the Bursar Bulletin comes in. My vision for this is that, first, it is a place where I can share the most interesting stories and trends in Fintech, AI and technology in general, and share my musings on how they will start (or should start) to impact Higher Education. Over time, I hope this can grow into a community where Bursars communicate daily on what they are learning, what they are doing and where they can work together to transform what it means to be a Bursar. These new technologies are transformational and, in my opinion, present an opportunity for Bursars to become the leading innovators within a University.
The Age of the Bursar, if you will.
Who are you?
👋 I’m Callum. I am the Founder and CEO of Backpack, a Fintech company working with Universities, state agencies, scholarship providers and many other Higher Ed organizations to automate and digitize their payment operations.
I could go on forever on my “about me” (just ask my wife), but here’s a summary:
I got lucky early in my career with an opportunity to spend eight years building SoFi - going from a small fintech startup to leading the IPO in 2021
I was a CFO for a while, but decided I wanted to go back to school - so I started Backpack - and here we are!
I went to University in Australia and ended up in Investment Banking right after
I started my “career” at 13 as a newspaper delivery kid, a shelf stocker at my local grocery store, a gym changing room assistant and, my personal favorite, a barista.
I love rugby 🏉, tennis 🎾, surfing 🏄🏻♂️, education📚 and payments 🤷🏽♂️
That’s nice, Cal… but what will you actually be serving up?
Fair enough. Good question. Here are some answers.
How often will you be posting?
Weekly on Tuesdays
What content can we expect?
The structure will be roughly:
[ Every Week ] Top news stories about Fintech / Higher Ed Tech with a summary on the “so what” of it all and what it could mean for student finance
[ Some Weeks ] I hope to share as many stories of bursars in the wild implementing cool fintech ‘things’ and how they are transforming their roles. Please send in as many as possible - whether it is you or a colleague. The more we can highlight these stories the better!
[ Ad-Hoc ] I’d love to get some pop up surveys going with this community so we can learn quickly and easily from each other. This will be a great way to know how others approach different problems without it being a large undertaking.
What should I do if an uncontrollable urge to unsubscribe hits me?
Resist! I kid, sort of. If you ever start to find the content “un-refreshing”, or there are specific topics you want me to cover please do not hesitate to send them through! You can do so either in the comments or reach me directly at callum@backpack529.com.
So, what next?
I am truly excited to get to work alongside ambitious bursars that want to learn, try new things, build better experiences and be a leader for their University.
So please share with any ambitious bursars you know might enjoy this. Also please feel free to send me as many suggestions and/or feedback to make sure this is as relevant and helpful as possible.
Still not sure? Don’t worry - my thorough market research tells me that you’ll love it (see below).
ps here is an exclusive preview of the first edition of the Bursar Bulletin that will be sent out Thursday (given we are sending this intro on Tuesday).
