Wade Eyerly and Dennis Murashko are co-founders of Degree Insurance Co. Wade is the former CEO and co-founder of Surf Air, the world’s first all-you-can-fly subscription airline, and Dennis is an actuary and lawyer who served as the general counsel and a senior advisor to Governor Rauner in Illinois. Together they founded the startup in 2017, working to remove the risks of seeking higher education in America by guaranteeing students’ income for five years after they graduate. In this in-depth conversation, they describe how the current financing of education has created generational debt, with the average loan repayment lasting 21 years, consider how individuals from all backgrounds can make better decisions about their futures and aspire to the American Dream by understanding the economic impact of their degree, and explain how colleges will, in turn, see a return on their investment through increasing enrolment and retention rates.
